![\"|\"](\"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/MediaItemID88497-3733.jpg\" "\\"|\\"")
<\/p>\n
BIG MISTAKE.<\/p>\n
I’d given him a reaction — a positive one at that — and now he wanted this new game to go on forever and ever.<\/p>\n
The hilarity had worn off for one of us — the one who wanted to go watch Workin’ Moms<\/em> with a cup of tea and a chocolate chip cookie.<\/p>\n The kid continued wheezing with laughter. He eventually giggled himself to sleep and I went downstairs thinking the whole thing was actually pretty adorable. I was sure he’d forget all about it overnight.<\/p>\n But the following morning, I hoisted him out of his crib and his eyes zeroed in on my face with a wicked little grin. With incredible speed and agility he used one hand to pull my top lip up like a curtain and the other to explore my back molars. No boundaries whatsoever with this mini-human.<\/p>\n “No thank you, we don’t put our fingers in peoples’ mouths,” I said.<\/p>\n "Cah-hah-hah!"<\/p>\n I was held hostage by a tooth-tickler. You could never even conceive of such an inconvenience prior to living with a child. It’s like co-existing with a little monkey. They have no comprehension yet of our societal norms and exist purely to explore, experience and have fun. I didn’t want to limit his sensory experience of the world but the fingers in the mouth thing was becoming a problem.<\/p>\n It was time to get creative. I tried pinning his hands underneath my arms while carrying him but he just pinched the flabby skin near my armpits. Next I tried biting his fingers — gently of course, testing his reaction with increasing pressure — but that just made him laugh more. It seemed that he got a real kick out of it.<\/p>\n It really became a problem when I was on the phone, the kid on my hip, making a doctor’s appointment, when he once again saw the opportunity to dig around in my mouth.<\/p>\n “I’m sowwy,” I said to the receptionist. “My son has his finguhs in my mouf.”<\/p>\n She laughed and said something about every kid going through a “dental exam” phase.<\/p>\n “Can you give him a toy to distract him?” she asked.<\/p>\n If only it were that easy, I wanted to tell her. I had already tried all the best toys in the house but none could compete with my mouth — the one thing I couldn’t exactly put out of reach.<\/p>\n Somewhat ironically, the arrangement wasn’t mutual. While he claimed unfettered access to my teeth, I was not granted access to his. If I so much as tried to slip a pinky into his mouth for corroborating evidence that he was, in fact, teething, he simply turned his head away in disgust. How dare I try to inspect his teeth? You could practically hear him muttering “why is this nincompoop trying to put her fingers in my mouth?”<\/p>\n Fellow mamas assured me the phase wouldn’t last forever. That’s the bittersweet thing about babies, no stage ever lasts for long. My friends were right. After a few days, the novelty wore off and he found a new target: my glasses.<\/p>\n What will be next?<\/p>\n — Charlotte Helston gave birth to her first child, a rambunctious little boy, in the spring of 2021. Yo Mama is her weekly reflection on the wild, exhilarating, beautiful, messy, awe-inspiring journey of parenthood.<\/em><\/p>\n FIND PAST STORIES HERE<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It began as an adorably spontaneous act of comedy and quickly became an inconvenient dilemma: my nine-month-old son had discovered my mouth. The first time it happened, I was singing the kid his bedtime lullaby, Moon River. I’m getting pretty good at it — I mean, I have sung it about 800 times. So, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":310,"featured_media":1685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"guid":"","source":"iNFOnews","byline":"Charlotte Helston","published":"2022-07-09T03:59:01","updated":"2022-07-09T11:30:00","_infotelid":"IT92728","_prepressid":"92728","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,2,819],"tags":[568,821,820,706,33],"region":[322,323,324,325],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured4","category-inhome","category-op-general","tag-bc","tag-opinion-editorial","tag-social","tag-vernon","tag-yo-mama","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/299\/yo-mama-an-unexpected-dilemma\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"YO MAMA: An unexpected dilemma","url":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/299\/yo-mama-an-unexpected-dilemma\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/news\/299\/yo-mama-an-unexpected-dilemma\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/MediaItemID92728-3658.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/inhome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/MediaItemID92728-3658.png"},"articleSection":"featured4","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Helston"}],"creator":["Charlotte Helston"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"iNhome","logo":""},"keywords":["bc","opinion-editorial","social","vernon","yo mama"],"dateCreated":"2022-07-09T10:59:01Z","datePublished":"2022-07-09T10:59:01Z","dateModified":"2022-07-09T18:30:00Z"},"rendered":"
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