Ankle Biters and their Parents

Yes, I know that I has been a while since my last post. I have a lot of pictures to share but of late just can't seem to find the time to download the pictures off of my camera and then upload them onto this site. I will get it done over the weekend I promise. Then again, it is not like this blog site has a huge following of readers ......

Anyways, I just have to share with you an episode that happened at daycare yesterday. The story goes is that Cathy, Kaelen's daycare mommy was making the four kids pancakes for breakfast. All four kids were sitting in their chairs eagerly awaiting the specialty flapjacks. Cathy turned her head for one moment, to flip a pancake and when she turned around again, Fiona, one of Kaelen's daycare friends had her hand in his mouth. I would like to point out at this time that she was not crying. Cathy could see that Kaelen's little jaws were clamping down on Fiona's hand so promptly screamed out Kaelen's name (more of a shock reaction), which startled Kaelen and caused him to burst out in tears. As it turns out, Kaelen did indeed chomp down on Fiona's little hand.

Kaelen was appropriately reprimanded (okay, lets just say that he was lucky that it was Cathy who was around and not Mommy) and all was done. Cathy however is obligated to be upfront to all of the parents when episodes like this occur. Afterall, Fiona was sporting a nice pinkish upper tooth mark on her little hand.

Thinking nothing out of the normal, as I drop Kaelen off to daycare this morning, I asked Cathy if she put Kaelen in a time out after he did his chompin yesterday and she said no. That is fine. I understand that Cathy has certain boundaries that she is obligated to follow these days, especially in light of never knowing when someone is going to turn around and sue you for something. I went on to confirm with her that she is empowered to place Kaelen in a time out should the need arise. After discussing this she went on to mention how she is always nervous to tell the parents when incidents happen. Somewhat perplexed, I asked her why. Case in hand: Fiona's daddy was quite unhappy when he discovered his daughter was bitten yesterday. He made Cathy feel uncomfortable in her own home and after what was perceived as a snotty comment, turned his back on her and left.

Here is my beef: Who does this Daddy think he is? Does he not realize that bites happen? Especially when these kids aren't even 2 years old yet? Part of me feels like I should be apologizing to him for Kaelen's actions but hell, who is to say that Fiona didn't stick her hand into Kaelen's mouth? I know Kaelen well enough to know that he didn't just grab Fiona's hand, stick it into his mouth and chomp on her. Kaelen was bitten pretty bad a couple of months ago in daycare but Cathy wasn't sure who did it. He came home with a full set of upper and lower jaw marks on his arm that was welted purple. Did we freak out? No. Bites happen. It is not like it happens all of the time, every day at daycare. This is the third incident that has happened since the year that Kaelen has been in daycare. We are dealing with children that are not even 2 years old yet. They are just learning what is right and what is wrong. We used that opportunity to tell Kaelen that bites are no good and look how they can hurt.

Last night, when we questioned Kaelen about biting Fiona, in his limited vocabulary, he said "Mine bad. Bite Nona". Translation: I was bad because I bit Fiona. He very solemn when telling me this and when I asked if she started to cry, he nodded to me with big crocodile tears in his eyes. Kaelen knows right from wrong and I firmly believe that is was an accident. Nobody is perfect.

Needless to say, tonight when the kids are being picked up from daycare it should be an interesting event. Paul is livid that Fiona's dad is mad at Cathy and plans on timing it so he is there when Fiona gets picked up. Paul feels that Fiona's dad is an idiot to be upset as this was an isolated incident.

Hmm ... perhaps tomorrow I will be writing about the fireworks that happened in Millrise .......