The Case of the Masticated Munchkin

So, the newtlet goes to a lovely daycare. It's a marvelous non-profit founded by hippies who used to barter care in the olden days, though the center runs on the basis of conventional currency since the 80's. They call the care-givers "teachers," even in the baby room. The kids all do arts and crafts (the newtlet finger-painted a mug for us this week). They teach the little ones baby sign language. The zoo sent some petting animals over last month, and the newtlet got to see a pot-bellied pig up close. We get daily report cards and quarterly parent-teacher conferences.

Mr. Newt and I really love this center and think it's good for our newtlet to be around other kids and interact with other adults and have a variety of experiences from an early age, so I refuse to feel guilty that he's not with me 24 hours a day, even though it's summer and my schedule is quite flexible. I have work to do, and I do it from home, and both the baby and I are happier if I'm not trying to do two things at once.

So, as I said, the newtlet goes to a lovely daycare. We have had a bout or two of the sniffles, but nothing like the rash of infections some kids experience when sent into the land of snot-nosed children. I think it helps that the baby classroom is set apart from the older kids, and the teachers disinfect the toys every night. (Really, every night. If I pick up our newtlet at the end of the day, his teacher is often carrying him around in a bjorn while she sets out the disinfected toys on a big towel or launders the crib sheets.)

In fact, the only problem the newtlet has had since starting there is that he is just far too delicious to mingle among other children. Another baby bit him last month. On the forehead.

Mr. Newt went to pick him up one day and had to sign off on an "incident report" describing the accident. Having inspected our son to make sure the damage was light (it didn't even break the skin), Mr. Newt read the report and innocently asked the teachers "So, which baby bit him?"

They seemed a little taken aback. Oops. Turns out the daycare does not release that information. Because, you know, we might try to take revenge on a 9-month-old. Take away her pacifier or something.

I completely understand that they don't want parents to try to settle these things among themselves, but I still find the top-secret identity of the newtlet's attacker kind of hilarious. First of all, there are only eight babies in his class, all of them under a year old. It's not like we think the biter was malicious. Obviously, the newtlet is just too yummy to resist. There are days when I want to nom nom nom all over his fat little face my own self. Completely understandable. Frankly, I think the perpetrator should be commended for her obvious good taste.

So although Mr. Newt and I are completely in sympathy with the spirit of this rule, we are still kind of dying to know which baby did it. When we drop the newtlet off and pick him up, we look around and make mental notes on things like which babies have teeth (4 out of 8) and which babies can pull up on furniture (the guilty party drew herself up behind our boy's bouncy chair, attacking him from overhead). This leaves us with only two prime suspects, but we don't know how to narrow it down any further. Darn baby witness protection program has thwarted us.

I think I'm going to start setting the newtlet down near them by turns, to see if either one makes a lunge at his head. Surely a pattern of guilt will emerge.

Also, we might need to start putting that bitter apple stuff on the newtlet's exposed skin every morning. It's a dangerous thing, being so irresistably delicious.