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Down in the Mouth

Most parents will tell you that the age range from 8 months to one year ranks very high on the Cute Scale. The newfound ability to crawl gives many babies a new lease on life at a time when things are starting to get a little stale. Eight-to-twelve month-old babies tend to exhibit a delightful combination of unbounded curiosity and the, so far, inability to talk back.

Theoretically, a parent could just about turn a child loose to explore on his own for most of the day, but there is a catch: This is the age when any object, regardless of size, shape, smell, or texture is put into the mouth for scientific analysis. It's more evidence of Mother Nature's twisted sense of humor. Improved levels of self-sufficiency are always bundled with new abilities to find danger.

Certainly, people speak of "baby-proofing" a home, but unless you are Martha Stewart, with a live-in army of undocumented sub-minimum wage servants, your floors will be host to the normal population of dust bunnies, loose change, thumb tacks, and lost car keys.

NOTE: The previous paragraph was intended for satirical purposes only. I personally have no knowledge of Martha Stewart's domestic employment policy, and for all I know, she pays her undocumented workers the full minimum wage.

Babies seem obsessed with categorizing all small items existing within the scope of their physical range, to determine whether they meet either of the main criteria for Desirable Foreign Objects: 1) small enough for choking, 2) toxic. Any object satisfying both conditions, such as a pea-sized chunk of plutonium, is going to be a very big hit.

Stella's not picky when it comes to putting things into her mouth, although she specializes in paper. It started with simple ripping and crumpling but has since developed into a full-blown consumption habit.

"Where's the Sports page?" I'll bellow, thrashing around in the household clutter like a blind pig hunting for a truffle, while Stella sits in the corner trying to look innocent, her cheek bulging like a squirrel on the take.

She has a rudimentary "Who, me?" look, but it needs work. There are few things as ridiculous as a nine-month-old baby with a mouth full of newspaper, carpet lint, rubber bands, gravel, kibble, or worse, trying to act cool.

Catching her in the act is the easy part. Removing the object is another story. Pry the mouth open, hold it open, and with the pinky of the other hand attempt to remove the object with a quick sweeping motion. It's usually an unpleasant process, and one might think it would discourage future attempts, but no.

Why are babies so driven to put things in their mouths? The head-shrinkers have had a field day with this one. Freud postulated that the image of an External Satisfying Object that can end the tension of hunger is responsible for the child's desire and the continuous (lifelong?) search for an object that can replicate this primal experience.

In other words, it's because they like it.

According to unnamed sources, Freud further suggested that eating, biting, sucking, and swallowing are the child's means of fulfilling his sexual urges, although it wasn't clear whether he meant his own or the child's.

In any case, if your little hunter-gatherer is truly incorrigible, you might scatter tidbits of healthy food around the floor and hope for the best. Failing at that, you can fall back on the satisfaction of knowing you're saving money on vaccuum cleaner bags.

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© Todd Pinsky 1998-2002. All rights reserved.