I was initiated to the world of Boo Boo Reports during Alexis' very first week of daycare. She was a chunky little 6-month old with thighs like turkey legs. Apparently, one of the other kids thought she really was a turkey because he or she tried to take a chunk out of that thigh. A perfect purple ring of baby teeth was left behind.
When the teacher handed me the Boo Boo Report, I had to laugh. I mean, it sucked that somebody bit my kid, but "Boo Boo Report?" That's ONE way of saying, "We have a tiny cannibal on our hands. SO SORRY." I found it interesting that the teacher didn't tell me who the cannibal was, but rather just reported that it had been mentioned to the appropriate parent.
When we got our second and third and fourth Boo Boo Reports, I started to wonder. Was there one cannibal? A pair? A whole tribe? I got the impression from talking to the teacher that if I really tried, I could get her to spill the name(s). But then I got the other sort of Boo Boo Report a few weeks later. I got the Your Kid Just Joined the Cannibals note.
Meh. Babies bite. It is what it is.
Eventually the cannibals got kicked out of the baby prison (aka nursery) and sent to the wild kingdom that is the Toddler Room. By then they had all figured out that it didn't make much sense to beat the crap out of each other. The Boo Boo Reports came to an end as the little monsters focused on being as loud and as rowdy as possibly. It was more of a mental sort of anguish that they liked to dole out, rather than physical pain.
It was during that phase that I started comparing notes with other parents. When we crossed paths, we would gossip about teachers, whine about the crazy expense of daycare, and speculate as to who we thought the punk parents might be. It took about twenty seconds for us to piece together that there was one primary biter back in the Cannibal Days. I fully admit that the only reason we even tried to figure it out was so that we could get that sweet little moment of thinking, "BOOYAH! I may be clueless, but at least my kid isn't a biter like so-and-so's kid!"
(Everybody likes to have a moment of thinking you're a better parent than someone else. If you say you don't, you're totally a liar. I think it's a necessary little strategy that helps to balance out those moments when you feel like a complete failure.)
We parents thought we were pretty slick. We stayed within the system, but totally found out who the beast referred to as "Other Child" on Boo Boo Reports was. It was like we were a bunch of grown-up Nancy Drews conspiring with adult Hardy Boys to solve the best-kept mystery of all time. We so smart!
Fast forward a few years to today . . . the very second I opened the door to pick Alexis' up at school (which also happens to be the daycare she's been at her entire life), she came running over, all sorts of excited to tell me something. Her mailbox is literally two steps inside the door, so as she clamored for my attention, I grabbed the notes out of her box.
The Boo Boo Report caught my attention instantly.
As I read the words, Alexis verbalized their meaning. She had been scratched on the face. She very accurately reported what had gone down--an epic battle over a Barbie had turned ugly. But, where the Boo Boo Report said, "Other child," Alexis just flat-out tattled on her friend. A teacher chuckled as the kid threw the other little girl under a bus then added, "We're not supposed to tell you who did it, but there you go, I guess."
Who needs Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys when you've got a 4-year old?
