Lion Tooth

So unfortunately, we’re still battling the carnal desire to bite.  It’s very infrequent, and mostly clothes, but still considered overly menacing for the civilized world.  We found out the cartoon movie Madagascar has a clear and apt message, “Don’t bite your friends.”  Just the message we’re trying to send!  The only problem?  Its star, Alex, is a lion.  And so Jakey is clearly torn between his desire to be a lion and his desire to have “good manners.”

After school I ask Jakey with bated breath, “Did you have good manners at school today?”  And he looks at me with his chin up, squints his little eyes, gets a big smile on his face and says in a high sing-songy voice, “Noooo biting!”  Clearly he can see right through our euphemisms.

We’ve also stumbled blindly right into the jungle of tall tales.  Just for the CPS record, Jacob says things that are completely untrue, and I have no idea why.  I pray this is normal for two-year olds?  I have asked him about little owies on his arm or scrapes on his shins and he’ll say, “Mama cut me.” 
“What?!  Mama would never cut you.”
Change of tune, “Daddy, hit me.”
“!?”
This is seriously troubling.  Hopefully this blog will not have to be used as evidence for the defense in a court of law.

Apparently Jacob poured his milk out at school today, just to look at it.  When asked about this incident, Jake now takes the Clintonesque strategy of complete denial.  In other cases, he turns the story around and continues to repeat, “Roxanna bite me.”  Though one day we did remove his shirt and found a huge bite mark on the back of his delicious, meaty little shoulder, courtesy of Justin.  Perhaps he is just caught-up in a preschool culture of mastication?

So we’ve been having talks about telling the truth and lying.  I’ve been trying to get creative in describing what is truthful and what is not.  Tonight it went something like this:

“Jakey, telling the truth is very important.  We do not say things that are not true.”
“What Mama?  Tooth?”
“No, truth.  The TRUTH, not tooth.  If I say, ‘Jacob is in the bathtub right now,’ that is telling the truth.  But if I say, ‘Jacob is in the kitchen,’ that is lying.  You’re not in the kitchen, right?”
“Yi-yon?  Alex the yi-yon?”
“No, lying.  LIE-ING, not lion.”

We don’t seem to be getting through to him.  Fall back to something Jake definitely understands?
“If you bite, no Handy Manny.”
Mr. Lion Tooth nods:  Message received.