“This is normal, this is normal… it must be normal?!” The words that I repeated over and over to myself after I had spent a day witnessing my 6 month old son… Growl! Now when I say growl I mean growl like GRRRRRRRRRR…. a husky and meaningful GRRRRRRR that is aimed at people or at any disobedient toy that dare cross my son’s path.
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It was like any other weekend in our household except for one major difference, my Wife was away for the weekend and it was up to me to hold the fort and raise our son for the next two days. Initially I had no problem with this as my son is normally a mild mannered well behaved average 6 month old baby. Yes, it was going to be hard doing everything on my own and I was going to be exhausted by the end of each day but it would be fun spending quality time with my boy. Little did I know how things were about to pan out.
It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon when I started to reflect on what had happened over the weekend and more importantly how I was going to tell my Wife? Could I get away with “what do you mean he is now growling? He was doing that before I took over for the weekend!” after all shifting the blame had worked for me in the past. Anyway, I relived the weekend through my head and realised that there had been some definite signs that my son was on the turn.
Breakfast: There is nothing unusual about a Fruity Baby Porridge for breakfast and he did eat it all, however he did insist on biting the tray of his highchair after every single mouthful. Was this the ‘hunger’ setting in?
Change Times: Nappy changing has always been a bit of a spectacle in our household and 9 times out of 10 I would end up with his pee somewhere on my clothes – even if I wasn’t the one changing him. This weekend he was more restless than usual, he squirmed so much it took near on 10 minutes to get his nappy on. Well the squirming got to the point where he had turned on his front and I had his bare bum staring at my face whilst he ‘nibbled’ on the change mat. Normal behaviour, right?!
Comforting: My son used to love being picked up and cuddled and hopefully he still does but every time I picked him up this weekend he would bite my shoulder with uncontrollable force. You are probably thinking, he is teething and you may be right but just as I thought that, it happened. GRRRRRRR… he husked at me and admittedly at first I found it funny as I thought it was a one off, there wasn’t much laughing after that.
Night Time: Both Friday and Saturday night went well apart from being woken up by a dull tapping. I checked on my boy and there he was fast asleep but at the same time he was banging his head against the cot bars in an almost hypnotic rhythm. Again odd?!
Morning: I wasn’t woken up by a cry or the sound of laughter but instead short sharp growls that were obviously directed at me as he peered between the bars of his cot.
But what could have caused this cannibalistic behavioural change?
GRRRRRRRRR!!!!
Was it my Wife’s fault for reading the Twilight series when she was pregnant? Maybe my son had subconsciously taken this in? Was he Team Jacob?!
Could it be the way I sneezed? Had he interpreted my violent sneezing as me demonstrating my predatorial prowess?
Had it been that I had given him more chicken than usual and now he had an uncontrollable desire for meat?
Maybe it was as a result of my over dramatic bedtime reading of the Gruffalo?
I guess I am never going to know what triggered the growling and my efforts should now be spent concentrating on how to repeal or at best delay the change from taking over my son completely.
As for my Wife she surprisingly hasn’t said much and having reflected on this I am starting to wonder if she had expected this change and if in fact she is the woman I thought she was. If the pack is evolving then this may be my last post and all the ‘fattening up’ my Wife has done to me over the years is about to pay off!
