Chomp

The whole inspiration for writing this blog was Neal Pollack’s book, “Alternadad.” It’s the story of a somewhat obnoxious hipster raising a “cool” son. The story crescendos with his son, Elijah (natch), having trouble at pre-school because he bites the other kids.

It brings to light by basic concern with our Elijah and pre school. When he’s at our house, he’s an absolute angel. He’s funny and cute and sings songs by himself in his crib. But when he’s out of our sight, is he a jerk? Is he secretly living a double life? Biter by day, great kid by night?

Well, thankfully we’ve discovered over the last few weeks that Eli isn’t the kid who bites at school. He’s the kid who gets bitten.

Diana got an incident report from the school last week. Apparently, a boy in his class was angry that Eli wouldn’t give up a plastic thing and took a bite out of crime. I won’t reveal the boy’s name for fear of getting sued. Let’s just call him “Jerkface Biting Jerk III.”

I took a look at his back, were the bit was (who bites another kid on the back?). There was barely a mark. Just a little red half moon. But I felt a rage that, quite frankly, startled me. I was seized with a desire to seek out Jerkface Biting Jerk III and apply BBQ sauce to his back.

After telling myself boys will be boys, I wondered if I should really be doing anything. If I were a sitcom dad, I’d probably dig out my old boxing gloves and give a heartwarming lesson about self defense before the commercial break.

But I don’t have boxing gloves. And I don’t know anything about self defense. And when I probed Eli about his feelings on the subject, he proclaimed, “I’m delicious!”

So I guess I’ll do nothing and hope next week’s episode is the one where Joe Namath guest stars.