On Friday, when I went to pick up Stella at day care Kathy gave me the disturbing news that Stella had bitten Alex…on the chin…hard enough to draw blood. It was as though someone had just told me that my child was a sociopathic murderer. I looked at her with desparate bewilderment, and blurted out the only thing that came to mind “Why?! Why would you do that?” To which her only response was “My bite Alex!”

Apparently, not only had she bitten Alex HARD ENOUGH TO DRAW BLOOD, but had done it with absolutely no provocation or warning. As the story goes, they were poised to give each other a hug when our otherwise sweet little girl had a change of heart and took a bite out of Alex’s face. Somehow if it had at least occurred in the heat of battle it would have made more sense. Instead found myself staring down at my child wondering at which time in the future I will be unlucky enough to lean in for a kiss and come back without an earlobe.

I was unprepared to deal with the whole biting issue. Somewhere in the back of my brain I began to think that we had miraculously evaded the perils of having “a biter”. Hoping, nay, praying that this was an isolated incident, we just let it go. If we have learned anything it is that there is a delicate balance that must be found when deciding what you are going to “go there” on. Sometimes if you give something too much lip service (no pun intended) it ends up backfiring and makes the situation worse. Our short term plan was to just drop it and hope it was an isolated incident.

So you can imagine my dismay when I came home to the report on Monday that Stella had bitten Alex – again! Now we have officially graduated from a one-time incident to a behavioral problem. Taking a page from most contemporary pet obedience manuals, we have decided to focus on rewarding the positive as opposed to punishing the negative. Being that we are rarely there at the time of the assault, we have a difficult time hammering home the punishment aspect. We can, instead promise her shiny objects and fabulous prizes if she makes it through an entire day without trying to take a bite out of any of her peers.

Steve loaded up on a bunch of otherwise mundane objects at the dollar store to use as bait in our little plan. Luckily, at this point in her development, the rewards system has been working well. The concept of blackmailing us has not yet occurred to her…although I know it is only a matter of time. I know I will forever look back on this time as the one little window in our lives when we (sort of) have the upper hand.

So, today as Steve dropped her off at day care he reiterated our deal: You no bite, You get treat. And much to our delight, it worked! Alex made it through the day without any new bite imprints left on her person, Stella got a cheap Dora tumbler and we pat ourselves on the back for our sheer mastery at parenting.