Naturally, then, Powergirl and I were freaked by a lengthy and detailed story that ran in The New York Times last week about cone-beam CT scanning technology that many pediatric dentists are using nowadays.

I won’t spoil the entire piece, but the Cliffs Notes version is this: These cone-beam scans can help dentists deal with complex cases, but research indicates that the machines generate way more radiation than is necessary to tackle everyday issues (cavities, etc.) that afflict a vast majority of kids.

What’s more, the piece concludes that these machines are zapping our kids excessively and unnecessarily, at a time when excessive and unnecessary zapping may cause cancer.

The article also suggests that this could be a case of users embracing technology for technology’s sake; though the machines generate three-dimensional images, in many cases there’s no need for anything more sophisticated than a two-dimensional image.

(As a related side note, I’ve wondered why every movie these days has to be in 3D as well. Isn’t high-definition 2D just fine? I digress.)

Anyway, if you’re a parent of a kid with teeth, give the piece a read.

This episode followed a morning earlier this week in which L attempted to “clean” my chest of chest hair. That first exchange fascinated me; today’s beauty mark drama nearly prompted me to laugh myself into an asthma attack.

Here’s how it happened. We were playing on the floor in her room, and because it was shortly after we had woken up, I was shirtless. At one point, she crawled over toward me to fetch a toy (actually, it was a measuring cup; she really likes using these as toys). That’s when she looked over at my shoulder and started giggling.

I knew immediately what she was going for, and explained to her what it was. This only fueled her curiosity more.

First, she scratched at it, trying to pry it loose. When that didn’t work, she climbed on me and used her teeth (trust me, this hurt like hell). Finally, she grabbed one of her teething rings and manipulated it like a tool to try and scrape the thing off my shoulder.

Not surprisingly, none of these methods was successful. While I was sitting there laughing hysterically, the baby got so frustrated by her failures that she started crying.

This outburst only lasted until she decided she wanted to untie her bumper from her crib railing for the tenth time of the hour. That poor bumper; I might have chest hair that needs cleaning and a bunch of conspicuous beauty marks, but thank goodness my body doesn’t come with ties.

First and foremost, this new baby—still named L, of course—has ditched the cold (and congestion) that was bugging her before we took off, and is now talking and cooing and yapping like always. She’s also got three new teeth, bringing her current total to five.

What’s more, the kid is eminently more mobile. Before our trip, the extent of her ambulation was army-crawling, during which she’d stagger across the floor like a zombie from some B-rate horror flick. Now, the kid is all-out crawling on all fours; because she still swaggers a bit when she moves, she reminds me of Smeagol from the “Lord of the Rings” films.

(As an aside, we left and the whole mobility thing was a cute little sideshow. The baby is now so fast and so agile that Powergirl and I have rearranged our Saturday to make a special trip to the mall for gates and other baby-proofing accoutrements.)

Of all this new stuff, perhaps my favorite development is her new ability to play catch. Yes, folks, you read that correctly: my eight-month-old daughter can play catch.

Granted, she doesn’t exactly “catch” the ball/stuffed triangle/squeezy-honky thing in mid-air. But once the object lands in her vicinity, she leans over, grabs it and fires it back in my general direction every time.

I’m no baseball scout, but I’d say she’s throwing with a gun like Mets shortstop Jose Reyes. Luckily, neither her hamstrings nor her intelligence resemble the lackadaisical and oft-injured Reyes in any way, shape or form (apologies there to my wife, who is a die-hard Mets fan; I like the Yankees and we have what we like to describe as an “inter-fanatical” relationship).

The bottom line: this post-Vegas L certainly is different than the pre-Vegas one.

All the baby guidebooks warned us development would accelerate rapidly after 7 months or so. I just don’t think we expected the differences to be so dramatic.

Last night, the spectacle took a number of heinous forms, including multiple crying fits (one of them lasted 90 minutes…at 3 a.m.), an ornery little girl and a poop explsion that somehow managed to rocket from baby booty on the changing table across the room to hit the far wall.

Powergirl and I combated this onslaught in shifts: I took 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., she took the graveyard (1-6 a.m.) and I picked up again from 6-9 a.m.

Needless to say, we were zombies for most of the day.

Luckily, excitement over the imminent eruption of L’s second tooth counterbalanced this exhaustion. We can see the ridge! It’s right next to her first one! Soon she won’t look like a little pirate! The superlatives go on and on (I believe Powergirl actually squealed when she heard the sound of new tooth clicking against an old rattle).

In the scheme of things, I guess I understand why these chompers give little ones such fits and starts; tooth eruption has got to be one of the most painful experiences for the little humans since birth itself.

That said, despite an endless supply of patience for my little girl, I’ve had more than enough tooth-related drama for one month.

I know: It doesn’t get any easier. I just hope at least one of these buggers comes in by surprise.

Powergirl and I had been suspecting incisor emergence for some time; over the last week or so, the baby inexplicably has been waking up in the middle of the night and has been drooling like a maniac.

Still, when the two of us spotted the little white bugger on L’s pink gums, we were thrilled to say the least.

For Powergirl, the discovery was particularly sweet—she’s an archaeologist, and has studied (thousand-year-old) teeth for the better part of the last decade. She has threatened to keep L’s teeth when they fall out to conduct isotopic analyses on them. She also has a science-nerd book on her shelf titled, simply, “Teeth.” (Of course I make fun of her for this relentlessly).

Anyway, I celebrated L’s first tooth by running out to the local Longs Drugs to buy a bunch of those teething rings you stick in the freezer. Because I’m neurotic, I froze the suckers immediately, and enlisted them this afternoon.

The rings made everyone happy. L clearly loved the way they soothed her aching gums. And Powergirl and I cracked up at how cold they made her little lips.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the pain and horror of teething will wipe away any ooohing and aaahing we might be doing now. Still, in a house that values teeth for a variety of reasons, it’s nice to be able to reach this important milestone.