Picking up the littlest from daycare the other day provided me with a healthy reminder to check my assumptions.

“Before you check out, I have an incident report to review with you.” the daycare employee said to me.

Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. My brain screamed. I turned my head. I squinted at the little one. I braced myself for the bad news I could sense was coming. I prepared to remind her of all of the do’s and don’ts and consequences we had reviewed with her brother the evening prior.

“Unfortunately one of your daughter’s little friends got upset at her today and bit her.”

Say what?

I must have look confused or concerned, probably because I was confused, very very confused.

“Oh, she’s ok. It just left a little mark and I…”

My brain was having trouble keeping up after having hit the assumption brakes so darn hard.

“It was not my daughter that did the biting?”

“No.”

“That’s awesome!” I responded with, perhaps, a little too much exuberance.

Discovery. It is so much better to be responsible for the bitten than the biter. I guess, this may only apply when kids are involved. I am sure the same rules don’t apply to zombies or cannibals.

I tripped over my words trying to explain my overwhelming enthusiasm for my injured child.

I shared the incident report I had received the day before.

I told her about “people don’t bite people.”

I left the daycare feeling awesome. My kid wasn’t the biter.

I am still winning, and as my little one someday recaps that day her mom did a happy dance after she had been ‘gravely’ injured at a childminding institution, hopefully someone will remind her that our experiences and responses are relative and you never know why or how or what causes a reaction in someone else.

We are beautifully unique and sometimes finding out your kid wasn’t the biter is the best possible news.

Xoxo,

Mrs Undad

Aka proud mama of a not the biter and a recovering biter