There is a great group that I join from time to time, www.artstrollers.com. It's a group of moms (mostly) that go around town visiting art galleries and other fun 'art stuff'. I ambitiously joined them this past Tuesday to go see the King Tut exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Baby in tow, off we went for our early morning rendez-vous. She fell asleep in the car, so that was great, and I was hopeful that she would sleep through most of the exhibit as it was her nap time. This did not quite turn out as planned - no matter, I would just let her enjoy the exhibit with me. She was her usual smiley self until we were about one third through the exhibit. Then she started to get restless and a little cranky. I thought maybe she needed to be fed, so I tried to feed her. That didn't work - she refused to nurse. Then I thought maybe it was her diaper, but after checking that wasn't the problem either. Then the screaming began. It came out of no where. It sounded like I was trying to destroy this child and she was fighting for her life. Feeling utterly helpless, I managed to scurry out of the exhibit, ridiculously embarrassed that my baby was having an 'out-of-control' screaming fit and people were starring at me. I felt like I better high tale it out of there because patrons paid to see this 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity and my baby was making it a rather unpleasant experience.

So what to do and where to go? Everywhere I turned there were patrons and students and the screaming seemed to echo more and more no matter which room I entered. I went into the room with the most natural light, thinking perhaps she would calm down. The screaming persisted and by now she was trashing about and I was having trouble holding her. She would stop crying for about 2 minutes and collapse against me. I thought maybe she would fall asleep, but within moments she started screaming again. I couldn't figure out what was going on. The only thing I thought was that maybe her first tooth was coming this very moment. This was in fact the case - I discovered a sharp little bump later in the afternoon. Students were walking by in packs and I could hear them mumbling "what's wrong with that baby" - this must have been a great bout of birth control because she was definitely at her finest is showing off how to be unhappy.

I left the gallery as soon as I could, screaming thrashing child and all. I was hopeful that I could return to finish viewing the exhibit, but that was not a possibilty. My little one collapsed into the car seat, passed out cold and went very pale - this concerned me to a great degree, but within 5 minutes her perfect little cheeks and lips were rosy again.

My baby cut her first tooth. She's happy as a clam now. I am sure she is still feeling some discomfort, but nothing like what we experienced yesterday morning. Wow. It must be tough being a baby.