The First "No, Ian"

To the tune of "The First Noel":

The first "No, Ian"
This Momma did say
To a certain poor baby
With teeth on the way

"No, Ian", "No, Ian"
"No, Ian", "No, Ian"
Biting is a no-ho-o-no!

Overall, Ian is generally a very well behaved child. We rarely have to tell him no to anything and when we do, he seems to listen. As he has started to get more mobile, we know that might change though! Interestingly enough though, our first real "no" issue has been with his teeth and what he likes to do with them. He's a normal teething baby in the fact that he likes to chomp on everything - even his own hands...ouch! But he thinks it is still okay to chomp on Mommy and Daddy. We let him "gum" us when he had no teeth, but the rules have changed now that he has some sharp little chompers in there. Poor kid is taking a while to figure it out.

At first, it was kind of funny to see the little wheels spinning. The first few times he bit my shoulder, I knew he didn't know better. He thought he was still gumming on me and needed something to massage his little teeth on. So, I simply told him, "No, Ian - you can't bite Mommy" and moved him away from my shoulder. The next few times, I lightly popped him on the mouth and told him the same thing. That's when the light bulb started to come on (at least from my observations - he could have been playing me the whole time). Instead of biting my shoulder, he would press his lips on it, which was fine. Then he got the bright idea to just bite down enough to grab my t-shirt between his teeth. He knew he wasn't supposed to get me, but wanted to see how far I would let him go.

It was actually pretty cute to see his little solution to the problem, except for he still missed and would get my shoulder as well as the t-shirt. Owie!! That kid has sharp teeth! Perhaps he has a bit of shark in him? And my mom pointed out that he might tear my shirts even if he missed my shoulder. So, back to training the child not to bite. He had actually been doing pretty good until today when he was back at it again. I popped him (lightly of course!) like I had been doing and told him "no" in a stern voice. Always before he has just given me a sort of puzzled look, but today he started fuss-crying. I'm not sure if it has finally sunk in that he is in trouble and he got his feelings hurt or what happened. Of course, I felt bad, but I can't have him biting me (or anyone else!).

I haven't been able to get a picture of him getting my shoulder, but a few days ago, he decided to go after my pajama pants one morning. I grabbed the camera really quickly - as I was telling him no - to document his first "No, Ian".

These aren't very good pictures, but you get the idea. In this one, he actually has fabric between his teeth!

I know we'll get this all figured out - I'm not worried about it. I just wanted to document it for Ian someday so we can look back and laugh. :-)

There's another cute (but less painful!) thing Ian has been up to this week as well. Lately, whenever I knock on a door, he will then proceed to "knock" on my shoulder with his hand. It is soooo funny. We showed Daddy today. I knocked three times on the kitchen wall and Ian turned, looked at me puzzled since it wasn't a door, but went ahead and banged his little hand three times on my shoulder. I knocked again, and he knocked again. Too funny!

We really do love our little man, even if he thinks we are his personal chew toys!