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.