Yesterday when reviewing the daily report from school, Chris noticed that there was an “incident” report recorded with a photo of Kaia’s back, noting that Kaia had been injured by a classmate. There was a typo in the report, so I wasn’t sure exactly what happened until I spoke with the teacher at drop off this morning. The teacher let me know that Kaia and a classmate were fighting over the same toy, and Kaia had an iron grip on it. The other child retaliated by biting her in the middle of her back, which resulted in Kaia crying and having a lingering red mark on her back.

“Kaia cried, and I felt so terrible because she never cries!” the teacher said to me, with a frown on her face.

I didn’t realize it was a bite from the original report because of the typo. But I did notice the mark when I gave her a bath. The bite was the size of a large strawberry, and it seemed weird that it would have been so dark and red. At first, I wondered what toy would have left such a mark. Now that I found out it was a bite from another child, the mark made much more sense.

At this age, kids don’t always understand what you are trying to say to them, and you definitely do not always understand them. They’re still learning what is considered “appropriate” vs “inappropriate” behavior with family, friends, and classmates, and so it’s hard to fault them when things like this happen. I shrugged it off and told the teacher I wasn’t that concerned. Toddlers will be toddlers. She said she felt relieved after I said this.

“Not all parents let these things go,” she said with a sigh. “They ask us how we couldn’t have prevented it from happening!”

With babies and toddlers, things like this happen in just seconds, and you can’t be everywhere all at once. Taking care of littles can be very all-encompassing and exhausting. We just have to let these things go and move on.