jaws!

it seems milo has a real knack for biting. especially arms, feet, any skin surface he can sink his teeth into. i encourage him chewing on chew toys, and taking good bites of his food, but i'm really hoping we can break this cannibalistic behavior before he starts getting labelled as "jaws" in the church nursery... and i'm determined to cure him of this obsession before he starts preschool. thankfully time is on my side for the latter.

according to one of my baby books, the correct response is to calmly tell the little piranha "don't bite," and remove the afflicted area from his clenched jaw. to overreact negatively, to laugh, and basically it seems to respond in almost any way, shape or form only encourages it.

sometimes he blows raspberries instead of biting, so i've also taken to encouraging that. i'll blow a raspberry too, i'll laugh when he does it, and when he bites, i gently push his head back and as boringly as possible say, "no biting"...

i figure he can't possibly be trying to hurt me at this point... he has no clue of the repercussions of this action, or why it's okay to bite squishy plastic toys, and crunchy yummy food, but not the people he loves.

but if i'm not paying attention, like the other day when i'm talking on the phone to my mom, and i'm holding him on my lap and he's got his mouth on my arm, i tend not to notice right away that the teeth are starting to clamp down... he left a red mark where he bit me and i may have accidentally let out a squeal. it only lasted the day, but still, not okay, little man, not okay.