Mamadom: Bite me

One thing as a mother that you have to learn to overcome is the feelings you go through when your kids get hurt, and I mean little accidents. They're going to fall, bump, get scraped and cut, among other things.

Today was one of those days. The whole thing happened too quick for me to run over and stop it from happening. I was getting the dog's water bowl to refill. The boys were playing with their toybox. P, my 2yo, was sitting in the box, while R, my 9mo, was standing, holding on to the edge. Yes, those kids will play with anything but the toys most of the time! Word of advice, just give your kids the tupperware to play with and they'll be occupied for longer than the pricey stuff - forget toys! Anyway, R starts putting his finger in P's mouth, which he does a lot. It's just something babies do - they have this fascination with faces. Before I could come over to pull R's finger out, P bit it...hard. Needless to say, R starts bawling bloody murder, his face contorted in complete agony, red, upset. Daddy, who was on the computer, runs over and yells at P and promptly puts him in time out, while I scoop the babe in my arms to comfort him. I rocked R and held him tightly for a few minutes, but he still wouldn't calm down. He cried so hard, that cry where no sound comes out bc he's crying so hard, his mouth wide open, eyes squeezed shut. Aye..I hate the feeling that goes through me when one of my children are like that.

P is in his time out corner bawling from us yelling at him, "Why did you do that?! You KNOW not to bite! Do NOT bite! Stay in time out!"

I then checked R's little left pointer finger. It was already turning red and purple. The bite mark was extremely deep, especially on such small, squishy fingers. I could see blood vessels were broken, but no blood came out. I nearly cried myself seeing such pain on him. Daddy then put an ice pack on it. At this point, the babe has stopped crying, sniffled a bit, became amazed by the ice bag and immediately started chewing on it. Ah, that's my boy. (Putting ice on a kid's boo-boo doesn't have much success.)

P, on the other hand, was still upset in his time out corner.

"Don't bite your brother, Preston! You know not to do that! Baby ouch!" Daddy and I exclaimed.

"Mamaaa..Daddaaaa..(wwaahhhh)..baby..bite..oucchhh!" Preston cried.

"Preston, come here, now!" I yelled.

He runs over to me as I hold his little brother.

"Now tell baby you're sorry. Say sorry, baby Richmond."

"Sowy baby Rumon," he sniffed.

"Now give him a hug and kiss."

He hugs baby and kisses him on the nose with a "muuaahh!"

I couldn't help but give him a hug and kiss, too. "Don't bite baby, ok, Preston?"

"Uh-huh," he nods.

"Now go play on the mat please."

He goes to the playmat, smiling away.

R is completely recovered from his pain and crawls over to his brother on the playmat.

Sigh, how am I going to handle it when they're wrestling and choking each other out as teens? Can you imagine 15 year olds in time out? Haha.