Today I learned a new lesson, the YMCA will hunt you down to pick up your child if they bite. I suppose this is a reasonable rule, just a little frustrating when it happens to you. Tuesday mornings are my treat to myself, from 9:30 until 10:30 I do Zumba. This morning I dropped off Jerry (his truck was in the shop), dropped off Brayden, chatted with my boss for a while and then headed to the YMCA.
Max was excited to go to child care. He noticed all the outdoor toys on our way in and I think he remembered last week and the fact he got to go outside. So I dropped him off and headed to Zumba. I was just starting to get my groove on and in walks the child care lady. There is always a bit of commotion that takes place when we get these visits, this is one of the busiest classes and most are moms and at this moment each are wondering if they'll be called. This time it was my turn, she told me Max had bit someone, I had to come get him and he couldn't come back for the rest of today. Nice Max, way to use your chompers.
Of course I asked what happened and they told me he just bit, for no reason. This surprised me, that didn't sound like him. But I took their word and him and walked away. However, as I stopped to fish for my keys, I noticed a bruise on his arm. Alas, he hadn't been unprovoked, someone hurt him. I went back to the childcare desk and showed them what had happened and they called another girl who had a completely different story and said that they both had been fighting. Which was it? I was frustrated at the fact that two different people told two different stories, but it was what it was and we left.
I called Jerry in the car and vented to him, defending Max and his self defense against a bully. He was amused by me and brought me back to the reality that they probably were both babies, fighting over something and one pinched and one bit, what were you going to do? Nothing. I can't really have a conversation about making good choices with a one year old. I did tell him that it wasn't nice to bite, but being pretty sure that he didn't quite understand, I stopped there.
On the way home this episode brought back a memory when Savannah was young, probably right about the same age as Max. She had this little friend that lived down the street that she liked to play with and for the most part they got along beautifully, until Savannah bit her. I remember my friend, her mom, was horrified and so was I! My daughter bit someone! I called my go to person, my mom and she assured me that it was normal, that when babies get frustrated they often bite because they can't verbally express their frustration. She was still my little angel, even if she had a tendancy to let her chompers do the talking.
When we got home Max pointed to his buggie and said, "hat." Which meant his helmet. I decided this was a wonderful idea and I got the bike and buggie set up and off we went on a bike ride. Today was another gorgeous day and we headed to the park and the wooded path. I decided to keep going and bike to Tacoma Boys. The girls are always asking to bike somewhere and I wanted to see if we had sidewalks the whole way, we do! Max and I sampled the fruit and bought a few things to make a fruit salad later. 
On the way home as Max looked particularly cute and people smiled at him I felt better, he was a lover, not a biter. We even made it through some playtime at the playground without another chop, yeah for us! Tuesday reminded me that when you are given lemons, make lemonade, or at least go biking and buy ingredients to make fruit salad. I was listening to Zac Brown talk about how hard it is being a parent. He has four children himself and he talked about how people who have children are ten times stronger than people who don't. I don't know about that, but having children definitely teaches you how to be flexible and how to roll with the punches or bites.
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