Sharing is a Virtue...That LO Does Not Possess

On Wednesday night, we had our friends Rick, Carla and Baby S over for dinner. J and I appreciate having friends who don't care that the house looks like a toy bomb went off and are polite about the pet-hair tumbleweeds drifting through the place. It makes things much less stressful for harried party-givers.

The evening started with Baby S deciding that clothing was optional and removing her shirt. (LO seems to have that effect on women.) So you see, this was fairly informal gathering.

Midway through the evening, Baby S started playing with LO's pop-up animal toy:
LO had quite the strong reaction to seeing another baby play with his toy. Even though he was having a grand old time practicing his ambulatory moves with the baby equivalent of a walker

he was quite disturbed to see Baby S enjoying one of his toys. So he walkered his way over to her, took the toy out of her hands, and set it aside so that he could resume walkering all around the house while making car noises.

LO has not played with that toy in several weeks. He didn't particularly want to play it with then. He just wanted to keep his options open and make sure Baby S wasn't having fun with one of his toys.

All four parents immediately went into "Be nice and share!" mode, which is about as useful as trying to bail a sinking boat with a thimble.

According to an article I read recently, apparently Mongolian mothers handle sharing squabbles by offering up the boob. Because nothing distracts a little one from an impending "THAT'S MINE" temper tantrum like breasts flashing all over the place, offering the possibility of nursing.

I doubt I'll use the "Angry? Have a boob!" method of baby-dispute-defusal, even though the author of the article claims that it has a 100% success rate. I really have much more fun bailing with a thimble. Over the sound of LO's car noises.

That, and we already had one topless woman hanging about the place. There's really no need for more than one per social gathering.