Banana Bread Bites
Abbie has been biting at the slightest provocation recently. She’s always been quick to bite whenever she wants something, usually attention, though it can be something tangible like a toy or the dog food my hand is blocking. The past few days she’s been biting very quickly, much quicker than Iowa State football’s decent back to the bottom of the Big 12.
For example, yesterday I was in the kitchen selfishly preparing a batch of banana bread. I was preparing three batches to be exact.* This preparation of a massive quantity of carbs was necessitated by the ten bananas I had lying on the counter collecting dust and brown spots. I had ten spare bananas because the grocery store sold me a bag of ripe ones cheap, and our freezer can only store so many frozen banana cubes for Abbie’s breakfast.
After I cracked all the eggs but before I could peel half the bananas, Abbie wandered into the room. She was entertaining herself by rotating between books in her bedroom and toys in the living room. This is her standard morning activity while I bustle about the house completing important tasks, like baking banana bread or cleaning up the kitchen after someone makes a mess baking, but eventually she always remember that only suckers have to entertain themselves. She must have realized she was a sucker, because she saw me, determined that I was focused on something besides her, toddled over to my leg, and latched on like a leech, except that instead of blood she was trying to suck attention from me. If she could find a way to do it painlessly, sometimes I’d prefer that she go for blood, such as the times that I’m elbow deep in banana bread batter.
The standard punishment for biting is a prompt whisking into her crib. If I sense her mouth trying to latch onto my leg, I try to redirect it and say, “don’t bite,” though I doubt the efficacy of this tactic. Usually she just redoubles her efforts to latch on after I tell her not to, as if to say, “Gee, I hadn’t thought about biting, but now that you mention it, that’s a great idea.” I try to be a little rough in my whisking so she never thinks we’re playing some sort of game, though when I carry her through the air I have a hard time telling if her vocalizations are complaints or giggles.
At that point in the baking process, I didn’t want to carry her into her crib. I had banana residue covering my hands that I feared would transfer to her clothes if I touched her. Plus we had a man working in the basement to prepare the furnace for winter at the time. I knew Abbie would scream if I put her in her crib, and I don’t want people to think I’m some sort of bad parent who’d rather bake than deal with his child.
I redirected her a couple times saying “no bite” each time, and watched her grow more frenetic as she smelled the blood in the water. I quickly gave up and threw her in her crib to calm down, but I moved gently to keep her protests to a minimum. It worked; she sat in her crib calmly playing, I finished peeling bananas, and the maintenance worker finished vacuuming the furnace and, I don’t know, pumping it full of heat for the winter.
This is the sort of behavior she’s been exhibiting recently. The past month, whenever she deems that we’re spending an inadequate amount of attention on her, she bites to grab our attention. That works, but I wish she’d just grab a book to throw at us, or at least cry. I believe the increase in biting is connected to the massive teething she’s experiencing right now. I think half her teeth are currently either moving through the gum line or about to do so, and her mouth hurts. Her incisors are all through, her canines are about to do so or have barely broken through, and the molars are threatening to follow. At least that’s what I think the status of her teeth is; she bites whenever I try poking around her mouth.
I have no choice but to deal with the biting and try to correct it as best I can. Like yesterday morning with the crib, I put her in there as punishment, but when she calmed down, I pulled her out without making a big deal out of it and told her I loved her. Then she bit me again.
* Fun fact: A KitchenAid mixer can handle two batches of banana bread simultaneously with no problem, but three is really pushing it, especially after adding the optional bag of chocolate chips.
For example, yesterday I was in the kitchen selfishly preparing a batch of banana bread. I was preparing three batches to be exact.* This preparation of a massive quantity of carbs was necessitated by the ten bananas I had lying on the counter collecting dust and brown spots. I had ten spare bananas because the grocery store sold me a bag of ripe ones cheap, and our freezer can only store so many frozen banana cubes for Abbie’s breakfast.
After I cracked all the eggs but before I could peel half the bananas, Abbie wandered into the room. She was entertaining herself by rotating between books in her bedroom and toys in the living room. This is her standard morning activity while I bustle about the house completing important tasks, like baking banana bread or cleaning up the kitchen after someone makes a mess baking, but eventually she always remember that only suckers have to entertain themselves. She must have realized she was a sucker, because she saw me, determined that I was focused on something besides her, toddled over to my leg, and latched on like a leech, except that instead of blood she was trying to suck attention from me. If she could find a way to do it painlessly, sometimes I’d prefer that she go for blood, such as the times that I’m elbow deep in banana bread batter.
The standard punishment for biting is a prompt whisking into her crib. If I sense her mouth trying to latch onto my leg, I try to redirect it and say, “don’t bite,” though I doubt the efficacy of this tactic. Usually she just redoubles her efforts to latch on after I tell her not to, as if to say, “Gee, I hadn’t thought about biting, but now that you mention it, that’s a great idea.” I try to be a little rough in my whisking so she never thinks we’re playing some sort of game, though when I carry her through the air I have a hard time telling if her vocalizations are complaints or giggles.
At that point in the baking process, I didn’t want to carry her into her crib. I had banana residue covering my hands that I feared would transfer to her clothes if I touched her. Plus we had a man working in the basement to prepare the furnace for winter at the time. I knew Abbie would scream if I put her in her crib, and I don’t want people to think I’m some sort of bad parent who’d rather bake than deal with his child.
I redirected her a couple times saying “no bite” each time, and watched her grow more frenetic as she smelled the blood in the water. I quickly gave up and threw her in her crib to calm down, but I moved gently to keep her protests to a minimum. It worked; she sat in her crib calmly playing, I finished peeling bananas, and the maintenance worker finished vacuuming the furnace and, I don’t know, pumping it full of heat for the winter.
This is the sort of behavior she’s been exhibiting recently. The past month, whenever she deems that we’re spending an inadequate amount of attention on her, she bites to grab our attention. That works, but I wish she’d just grab a book to throw at us, or at least cry. I believe the increase in biting is connected to the massive teething she’s experiencing right now. I think half her teeth are currently either moving through the gum line or about to do so, and her mouth hurts. Her incisors are all through, her canines are about to do so or have barely broken through, and the molars are threatening to follow. At least that’s what I think the status of her teeth is; she bites whenever I try poking around her mouth.
I have no choice but to deal with the biting and try to correct it as best I can. Like yesterday morning with the crib, I put her in there as punishment, but when she calmed down, I pulled her out without making a big deal out of it and told her I loved her. Then she bit me again.
* Fun fact: A KitchenAid mixer can handle two batches of banana bread simultaneously with no problem, but three is really pushing it, especially after adding the optional bag of chocolate chips.
posted by Matt at
10:07 PM
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