YO MAMA: The tale of the baby who loves to munch his Munsch

OPINION

I sat cross-legged on the floor with my eight-month-old son nestled in the seat of my lap, a nice stack of books piled up beside us. Outside, it was snowing. Inside, the fire was burning. My kind of morning. The kid sat contentedly while I read, somewhat unusual because he was usually straining to grab and devour the book we were reading. How nice, I thought, giving his right foot a little squeeze. He’s really into the story.

That’s when I realized he’d outsmarted me. He wasn’t listening quietly to the story, he was preoccupied with a small, pocket-sized book he’d pulled from the pile while I wasn’t looking (I, at the time, had been captivated by Elizabeth’s progressive feminism in The Paper Bag Princess). Because of the way we were sitting, there was a little blind spot in his lap, and he had taken full advantage of it.

He had an old copy of ‘You’re Not My Mother’ and was stuffing it in his face with the speed and efficiency of a gulping food processor. He worked fast. It was a highly desirable soft cover too, perfect for nibbling. 

There are few other things the kid chews on with the vigour he has for books. His appetite seems to crave them. I mean, he really munches his Munsch. The pages melt in his mouth, softening to a pulpy mush. He stores wads of the pasty goop in his cheeks like an old man with chewing tobacco. He has plenty of child-safe toys to chew on, but they just don’t don’t appeal to him now that he’s onto the illicit stuff. Simply the sound of my husband crumpling newspaper for the fire causes his head to whip sharply in that direction.

He’s not the only book-chewer I know. My best friend’s son has acquired a taste for books too. Between us, we’ve started referring to the daily intake of book pages as “roughage.” Extra fiber. And here’s a fun fact that is absolutely true and not a figment of my sleep-deprived brain: wood fiber is actually added to a lot of foods that we eat. It’s called wood cellulose and it’s added to everything from cheese to ice cream. So, obviously, the kid just has a very mature palate.

It’s an unfortunate state of affairs for the books, though, many of which were kept in immaculate condition and meticulously stored by our parents for decades.

Books — reading them, rescuing them, mourning their losses — comprises much of the day. My life's work has become The Prevention of Choking on Book Pages. I am constantly prying books out of the kid’s vice grip, placing them back on the shelf, and turning back to discover another one going into his mouth. It keeps us all very busy.

That night, I resumed my campaign to instill a love of reading — not eating — books in my son. Of course, all he wanted to do was feast on his fibrous dessert. We wrestled over the book. In frustration, I picked up what was left of ‘You’re Not My Mother’ and tossed it beyond his reach. He wasn’t crawling yet. There, take that, I said as he pawed futilely in the book’s direction. But then, something happened. He leaned forward from his sitting position and landed on all fours. That was new.

I scurried over to the book and began fanning the pages between my fingers, the enticing aroma of wood cellulose wafting to his nose. He lunged, screeched and clawed for it. He wobbled, lurched, collapsed, and got back up again. I couldn’t have been more proud. His love of books — while unconventional — had motivated him to crawl.

He reached for the book as if with his dying breath and drew it to his mouth. My husband and I cheered and applauded.

“Should we let him have a bite?” my husband asked. “You know, to celebrate?”

“Oh, all right. Just a nibble.”

— 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.

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