My Kid Bit Your Kid Today at Daycare… And Liked It!

January 6, 2012 at 7:22 pm , by 

13 months.

Somewhere between an outdated Mike Tyson joke and a sarcastic reference to the Twilight series is the knowledge that today, my 13 month-old bit two other kids at his daycare.

How was I supposed to respond when my wife told me about it?

A) Oh no! Not our son! WHAT DO WE DO?!

B) Well… well… I didn’t teach him to do that? Did you?

C) Alright then, tonight when I get home I’m going to sit him down and have a serious talk with him. Plus, his punishment will be that he can’t play with our cell phones for a week!

What was my actual response? I laughed. Yeah, I’ve already established the fact that I have this unfortunate habit of encouraging my son’s bad behavior by laughing and applauding him for it. But seriously, it’s not like he bites us.

So where did he learn to bite his peers?

Maybe from them. Maybe he’s just trying out his newly received teeth?

Or maybe he’s just a baby and that’s just one of the weird things some toddlers do? That’s my vote.

Am I supposed to feel guilty that my son bit two of his friends today? Should I feel some urge to further explain or research his behavior?

Nah, he’ll be fine.

Or will he… now that he has a taste for true blood? (Insert clever Twilight reference here.)

Image: Red apple with bite, via Shutterstock.

 

Animalspeak Volume 1: Why are Animals Able to Talk in Cartoons?

One of my pleasures in my life is pointing out the universally accepted concepts that surprisingly no one ever questions. The majority of children’s animated TV shows and movies involve talking animals. We have simply accepted this as “make believe”. Okay. But what I can’t accept is that fact there is no explanation as to how the animals gained the ability to talk.

Was it a magic spell? Extreme intelligence? Possession? And did the same thing that made the cast of the Lion King able to speak also enable the cast of Looney Tunes to speak as well? And sometimes animals interact through speech with humans like it’s no big deal. If I found a talking animal I would definitely exploit it for all it’s worth.

There has to be a physical explanation for this. But I just can’t see it. Even if an animal had the intelligence to speak, most animals don’t have the physical features necessary to do so. For example, how could a cat say the word “brother” since cats don’t really have lips? It would sound like “rother”.

Also, the other hole I have found in this concept of talking animals is that their voices would sound nothing like they do on Disney movies. By doing a quick search on “talking cat” on YouTube, I can watch a cat saying “I love you” but it sounds more like “rye row yoo-oo-ow”. And its voice has the same sound and tone as when a cat meows. It doesn’t sound like a man or woman’s voice.

Life can be disappointing sometimes.