(Note: This ought to explain why I've been scarce lately. Well, this and the vomiting, fevers, and general malaise.)
Yo District Manager (don't have a name yet),
(Background about my kids, their names and ages, and where and when my kids have attended Daycare Centers. Edited to be concise. I was kind enough not to charge myself freelance rates for the editing services.)
I would like to bring an issue to your attention. On May 31, upon arrival in the toddler room, I noticed a large bite mark on the back of my son's calf. I pointed it out to the two staff members, who were unaware of it, and mentioned it to an office staff member on the way out. On Thursday, June 7, while bathing my son, I noticed a bite mark on his back. My children do not attend the center on Fridays, so I called the next morning to let the director know. The next Tuesday, June 12, I arrived at pickup time to find two fresh bite marks, along with what appeared to be another small bite, on the front of his shin. This time, the bites were accompanied by an incident report, which explained that another child had bitten my son as he walked up the playground stairs.
At this point, as I felt that three bites in three weeks seemed excessive, I asked an office staff member (the center director had left for the day) if there might be a child with a biting problem. She said yes, there was. When I spoke with the morning-shift teachers in the toddler room, they gave the impression that they agreed with her.
Over the next couple of days, my son's shin became quite bruised, and I called the center director to express my concern again. At pickup time, she approached me to say that she understood my concern, and wanted to reassure me that it was not the same child each time. I am not sure how she was able to say this with such confidence, as two of the three bite marks had not been noticed by staff members, and decided to ask the toddler teachers to clarify on Monday. They explained that there was not actually a child with biting issues in my son's classroom, but in the next age group up, and the age groups were sometimes combined oustide on the playground or in the late afternoons. This made me wonder if levels of supervision were adequate during the times that these age groups were combined.
My concerns intensified the next day, Tuesday, June 19, when once again I found a bite mark, this time on my son's wrist (it featured more teeth marks than he has teeth, so it was not self-inflicted). Again, there was no incident report. I reported the bite to the center director the next morning, and she said that she would talk with the teachers about it.
Over the weekend, I noticed a sore, with a scab forming over it, on one of my son's fingers; since the daycare had not mentioned this, I thought he'd injured his finger at home. I was very disappointed when I arrived this morning and the teacher informed me that there was an incident report for me, dated last Thursday, June 21: another child had bitten my son on the finger. I took the report to the center director immediately to inquire why I had not received the report earlier, as it is now Tuesday, and mentioned that I was particularly disappointed because this bite had obviously broken the skin and I had not been informed in a timely fashion. She said that sometimes they forgot to leave the reports with the afternoon teachers.
I do not want to overreact; I am well aware that children, particularly those in this age group, are very oral and frequently express such by biting. However, my fourteen-month old, one of the younger toddlers in his classroom, has been bitten five times in four weeks. The center director's handling of the matter seems to so far consist of reassuring me that he is not always bitten by the same child. Again, since three of the five bites were not observed until I found them, I don't see how that can be stated with any accuracy, nor do I find it particularly relevant; I would think that one child being bitten five times over four weeks is problematic no matter what the situation. If one child has biting issues, that needs to be handled with the child's parents. If multiple children are biting with this frequency, the level of supervision in the toddler room needs to be addressed.
Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
If you say it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious...
At Boy Wonder's four-year checkup, the doctor began with a series of questions. Could he walk forward and backward, jump, and hop on one foot? Why, yes. Sometimes all at the same time while standing on the couch. Could he speak clearly, so that strangers could understand him? Check. At the dentist's office: "Hi, Dr. Dentist! I'm BoyWonder Last Name! Are you going to check my teeth?" Dentist to Dragon: "Wow, he's really outgoing. He's only four?" At the mall: "I'm Boy Wonder. I'm the one who's bigger and has teeth! He's the baby brother. We call him Action Hero and he has four teeth." (In response to "Aw, what a cute pair of brothers!") Could he draw with a crayon? Yeah; actually, he can write his NAME with a crayon. (Or a marker or a pencil. I just about fell over the first time I saw him write his name; I still have the name-tag sticker he wrote it on.) Build a tower of blocks? Check. Name at least four colors? More like all of them, for a while now. I still remember going Christmas shopping with him in the stroller, a few months before he turned three; we were walking past display tables draped in various colorful cloths, and he was pointing and shouting, "Rett! Lello! Green! Hurple! Bew!"
The questions went on; I don't remember any more of them, but the answer to most was, "Yes, with flair." This doesn't mean that I think he's a Gifted Prodigy, although I think he's pretty smart; he's been doing curriculum-ish stuff at daycare for a while, and he's got a good memory, like someone else I know. (Blush.) He is pretty verbal and outgoing, though. And watching him learn, listening to him ask questions, watching him puzzle over the answers...all fascinating. One of the most enjoyable things about being a parent is getting a crash course in Early Childhood Development.
There's a lot to absorb, though, and the wires do get crossed sometimes. Please enjoy these recent examples.
We've been talking about days of the week a lot recently (Friday is Grandma Day, Saturday and Sunday are days when Mommy and Daddy are home and not at their offices, Monday is a school day). He also likes to count.
"And then there's sixteen. What comes after sixteen?"
"Seventeen! Eighteen! Nineteen!"
"Wow, you're doing great. What comes after nineteen?"
"Friday!"
From the scientific frontier:
"Mom, mosquitos suck butts, right?"
Body art:
(patting Dragon's tattoo) "Daddy has a dragon on his arm." (pause) "When I grow up, will I have a dragon on my arm?" (Me: "Well, if you want one. But someone will have to draw it with special ink...but not until you're at least eighteen, or until you...oh, never mind.")
The questions went on; I don't remember any more of them, but the answer to most was, "Yes, with flair." This doesn't mean that I think he's a Gifted Prodigy, although I think he's pretty smart; he's been doing curriculum-ish stuff at daycare for a while, and he's got a good memory, like someone else I know. (Blush.) He is pretty verbal and outgoing, though. And watching him learn, listening to him ask questions, watching him puzzle over the answers...all fascinating. One of the most enjoyable things about being a parent is getting a crash course in Early Childhood Development.
There's a lot to absorb, though, and the wires do get crossed sometimes. Please enjoy these recent examples.
We've been talking about days of the week a lot recently (Friday is Grandma Day, Saturday and Sunday are days when Mommy and Daddy are home and not at their offices, Monday is a school day). He also likes to count.
"And then there's sixteen. What comes after sixteen?"
"Seventeen! Eighteen! Nineteen!"
"Wow, you're doing great. What comes after nineteen?"
"Friday!"
From the scientific frontier:
"Mom, mosquitos suck butts, right?"
Body art:
(patting Dragon's tattoo) "Daddy has a dragon on his arm." (pause) "When I grow up, will I have a dragon on my arm?" (Me: "Well, if you want one. But someone will have to draw it with special ink...but not until you're at least eighteen, or until you...oh, never mind.")
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Bite me
First things first! I have recently hit two big blog milestones: I recently whizzed right past my 100th post without even noticing. Go me! And, not to detract from that milestone, please enjoy the first gratuitous use of "bitch," available in the comments. Go Anonymous!
And serious things second.
I have been so busy worrying, for the past couple of months, about the kids getting undetectable bat bites. Meanwhile, I'd forgotten to worry about a slightly more common type of bite: the HUMAN bite.
Kids, particularly toddlers, bite each other frequently. I was shocked and horrified the first time it happened to Boy Wonder; he must have been about 15 or 16 months old, and another child at his daycare bit him. Which is a tough age, for the bitee and for the biter. There's not really a lot that can be done at that age; the daycare center will of course inform the parents that their child bit another kid, and the parents can talk themselves blue in the face about how we don't bite our friends, but then the child will simply forget about it until the next day. And it's my impression that unless the issue becomes very serious, with a child biting constantly, breaking skin and drawing blood, the daycare center isn't able to do much except keep an eye on the biter and fill out reports every time someone is bitten. After enough paperwork has stacked up, I imagine it's probably suggested to the parents that the other children in the classroom might be better off without mini-Dracula. It never got to that point with Boy Wonder; no one in his class was a serious biter, and over perhaps two years with a bunch of other toddlers, he was bitten perhaps four or five times. Overall, not bad.
However. The boys have been at their new daycare for six weeks now, and three of those weeks have featured bite marks for Action Hero. And the first two times, the teachers didn't even know that he'd been bitten. I am not quite sure how they did not notice the first time, since he was wearing shorts and had a BIG HONKING FRESH BITE MARK on the back of his leg. The second time, I found a bite mark on his back later in the evening, and called the center in the morning to let them know. They were apologetic, and mentioned that since Action Hero is such a mellow kid, he probably hadn't even cried about being bitten. Which may be the case, as he is quite a laid-back child (except when I try put him down so I can, I don't know, make dinner or pick crackers off the floor, whereupon he turns into a tiny red-faced screaming creature and clings to my legs, but that's a story for another time). Still, BIG HONKING BITE MARK. Seriously.
At least the one today was observed and written up right away; apparently, the toddlers were out on the playground, and Action Hero was walking up the steps when another kid grabbed his leg and bit him. Twice. Pretty hard, judging by the way his shin looks: no broken skin, but it's almost bruisy-looking. Two little rings of teeth marks, with another half-bite in the center of one of the rings. Good grief. And I was pretty irritated, and explained how I am aware that kids bite each other, and certainly my older son had been bitten a time or three, but four bites in less than three weeks seemed a little excessive, and did any of the toddlers perhaps have biting issues? And they said yes, actually; one of the toddlers had been biting rather a lot lately; the mother had been informed, and just didn't know what to do about it anymore.
I'm not sure what to do, either. Yes, kids bite, and while I was never pleased when Boy Wonder was bitten, it was infrequent enough that I didn't consider it a serious problem. Action Hero getting bitten weekly, though (and he's only there four days out of five)--that's a problem. I hope the daycare handles it properly; I'm already wishing that their former daycare would vanish from its present location (which is in exactly the opposite direction from my office) and materialize at the end of our block, so they could attend that one again. This does not help much.
And serious things second.
I have been so busy worrying, for the past couple of months, about the kids getting undetectable bat bites. Meanwhile, I'd forgotten to worry about a slightly more common type of bite: the HUMAN bite.
Kids, particularly toddlers, bite each other frequently. I was shocked and horrified the first time it happened to Boy Wonder; he must have been about 15 or 16 months old, and another child at his daycare bit him. Which is a tough age, for the bitee and for the biter. There's not really a lot that can be done at that age; the daycare center will of course inform the parents that their child bit another kid, and the parents can talk themselves blue in the face about how we don't bite our friends, but then the child will simply forget about it until the next day. And it's my impression that unless the issue becomes very serious, with a child biting constantly, breaking skin and drawing blood, the daycare center isn't able to do much except keep an eye on the biter and fill out reports every time someone is bitten. After enough paperwork has stacked up, I imagine it's probably suggested to the parents that the other children in the classroom might be better off without mini-Dracula. It never got to that point with Boy Wonder; no one in his class was a serious biter, and over perhaps two years with a bunch of other toddlers, he was bitten perhaps four or five times. Overall, not bad.
However. The boys have been at their new daycare for six weeks now, and three of those weeks have featured bite marks for Action Hero. And the first two times, the teachers didn't even know that he'd been bitten. I am not quite sure how they did not notice the first time, since he was wearing shorts and had a BIG HONKING FRESH BITE MARK on the back of his leg. The second time, I found a bite mark on his back later in the evening, and called the center in the morning to let them know. They were apologetic, and mentioned that since Action Hero is such a mellow kid, he probably hadn't even cried about being bitten. Which may be the case, as he is quite a laid-back child (except when I try put him down so I can, I don't know, make dinner or pick crackers off the floor, whereupon he turns into a tiny red-faced screaming creature and clings to my legs, but that's a story for another time). Still, BIG HONKING BITE MARK. Seriously.
At least the one today was observed and written up right away; apparently, the toddlers were out on the playground, and Action Hero was walking up the steps when another kid grabbed his leg and bit him. Twice. Pretty hard, judging by the way his shin looks: no broken skin, but it's almost bruisy-looking. Two little rings of teeth marks, with another half-bite in the center of one of the rings. Good grief. And I was pretty irritated, and explained how I am aware that kids bite each other, and certainly my older son had been bitten a time or three, but four bites in less than three weeks seemed a little excessive, and did any of the toddlers perhaps have biting issues? And they said yes, actually; one of the toddlers had been biting rather a lot lately; the mother had been informed, and just didn't know what to do about it anymore.
I'm not sure what to do, either. Yes, kids bite, and while I was never pleased when Boy Wonder was bitten, it was infrequent enough that I didn't consider it a serious problem. Action Hero getting bitten weekly, though (and he's only there four days out of five)--that's a problem. I hope the daycare handles it properly; I'm already wishing that their former daycare would vanish from its present location (which is in exactly the opposite direction from my office) and materialize at the end of our block, so they could attend that one again. This does not help much.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
This is your captain speaking?
Not QUITE the result I expected. Thanks to Wordwitch for the link!
Your results:
You are James T. Kirk (Captain)
Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test
Your results:
You are James T. Kirk (Captain)
| You are often exaggerated and over-the-top in your speech and expressions. You are a romantic at heart and a natural leader.  |
Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test
