Teeth Tactics

When Everett was seven months old and already had eight teeth, I began to wonder if he would discover the many ways he could use them. He has mastered biting food, which is good. He has not bit any other babies, which is also good. He does not seem to be particularly enthused with his many teeth, which is, in most cases, also for my benefit.

Lately, however, Everett has realized he can use them for his benefit. He has quite a little temper, and I just know I am going to have a terrible terrible-two's baby. When he gets mad at me (reasonably frequently), I can almost literally see the anger exploding from somewhere inside that tiny body. I have recently discovered (and believe me, this was not my objective)that if I take something away from him that he wants, or if I tell him 'no', he will glare at me, scrunch up his face, and bite me. Yes, he will bite me. On purpose! Where did he learn this? I don't go around biting people, and neither, I trust, does Joel. He does not spend a lot of time with other babies, we do not know any babies who bite (besides him), nor do we frequently watch movies where the plots revolve around biting as a revenge medium.

From the very first time he bit me out of anger, I have sternly said "no biting", and put him in the corner by himself. I think the corner works well for him because he is such a momma's boy and has to be able to see me all the time. He crawls right out (which is fine--the objective is to remove him, not keep him removed), but I think it is enough. I was worried that this wouldn't work, but it seems to, because most of the time now he will look at me hesitantly before going for any piece of my skin that is near his face. If I am fast enough I can pull my hand away, but when I see particular determination in his face, sometimes I will let him bite me so I can reinforce that it is bad behavior. Is that crazy or what? Leave it to a mother to willfully allow her child to bite her "for his good".

I have to ask myself, though--where did he learn this? I have never--I repeat, never--given him what he wants when he bites, so he can't have learned that it works for that reason. I am left to think this little person has an explosive temper, and I bet I will spend a lot of the next years trying to help him learn to control it. He has begun to hit as well, so we'll have to start working on that one.

I really have little to complain about, since he is generally very well-behaved and has a sweet personality. He is my little buddy, and I would not change anything about him. I would, however, make myself infinitely smarter so that I will always have answers.

Infinite smarts: every mother's dream? You can chomp on that.