Dog Bites Man

Is of course not a story. Man bites dog is.

So how about Toddler Bites Brother?

That's the headline for the week at my house and with all news that fit to stop the presses it arrived with a yell, or rather a shriek.

It all started with the usual command to clean up the room. And as with the usual command to clean up the toys, this was promptly ignored by both boys. Hikaru of course because at age 2 he'll clean up... for about two seconds and then wander off to play. And Makoto who starts thinking of new and interesting excuses as to why he didn't clean. It also started a bit of a cycle. Makoto and Hikaru would start playing, I'd tell them to clean up. Makoto would then use that as an excuse for stealing the toy that Hikaru had to "clean" (I.e. he was going to play with it now), thus sending Hikaru running down the hall to my office in tears with Makoto hot on his heels. There of course I'd comfort Hikaru and tell the both of them to GO CLEAN! Which they would, for about two seconds, and then the cycle would reset itself.

After about 6 rounds of this however Makoto suddenly screamed. And I mean screamed. It was loud enough to bring me out of my office at a dead run and sent Beloved into a minor panic. With the crying, I assumed it was Hikaru and thus was somewhat surprised to find Hikaru bolting into the playhouse and Makoto on the floor in tears. Asking what happened, Makoto finally managed to choke out that Hikaru bit him on the knee (Actually, it was more his lower thigh, but...).

Hikaru got introduced to the concept of time out, he was also told to apologize to his big brother after Beloved took over comforting Makoto and took a long to find a rather large bite mark that needed a band-aid.

What was somewhat more worrisome was the story that Makoto told us of how it wasn't a tussle, Hikaru went after Makoto with his mouth open. I wasn't aware that I was raising Jaws, but this isn't the first time we've had problems with a biting kid. Hikaru has taken to using his mouth when it comes to his fights over toys at  nursery school as well, nothing serious of course, just standard toddler, but still...

That said, we might have a chance at getting through to him that this isn't going to work. Apparently time out and the fact that Daddy put him there (And put him back into it) made an impression.

Or so Beloved thinks from the fact that during his bath, Hikaru kept saying "Time out! Time out" and tried to stand in the corner of the bathtub.