Forgotten Sleep

shame on you. Bite me twice, maybe shame on me. Bite me three times, I think we need to talk.

Okay, so I’m not talking about me. I can’t remember the last time that a person (other than one of my children) actually bit me. Well, yes, I can, but we won’t talk about that.

This time, I’m talking about Little Man. We got a call from Spiffy, Expensive Daycare/Preschool today, informing us that our son had been bitten for the third time since we enrolled him in January. Three nibbles in less than three months. We’ve decided to call him the “afternoon snack.”

Fortunately, none of the bites have broken the skin, and he’s seemed to be perfectly fine within a minute or two of having one of his little friends mistake him for a Goldfish cracker. But, seriously? I think they’re spraying him with movie theater butter and setting the other munchkins on him.

Alright, so not really. But sometimes it seems that way. Don’t me wrong, I’m not angry. I’m well aware that little kids bite, especially those who can’t yet talk. And, the teachers can’t be within arm’s reach of all the kids at all times — there’s only two of them, after all.

At the same time, though, having my son associate with the Bad Biting Crowd makes me worry that he’ll pick up this vice. I’ve seen kids get kicked out of preschools because they aren’t able to control their cannibalistic tendencies. Big Girl was never a biter, so I don’t relish the possibility of having to prevent Little Man from taking a chunk out of his big sister. Frankly, given that he already head butts me, pinches and scrapes at the skin on my neck and smacks me in the face, the thought of seeing his little chompers closing in on any part of my exposed skin makes me quake with fear.

Still, catching sight of the mouth-shaped bruise on his right cheek this afternoon as he ran toward me when we picked him up made me feel more than the average amount of sympathy for my sweet Little Man. And, in the back of my mind, I found myself wondering, are 1-year-olds too young to get what Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba means when he says, “Don’t, don’t, don’t bite your friends?”