Adventures in Parenting #21: Is My Baby a Cannibal?

In the three plus months of his life, I have already accused my son of being a vampire and a ghost baby. Now, I don't want you to judge me as some horrible person who thinks only the worst of his son, I just call 'em like I see 'em. If you sleep all day, abhor the light, stay up all night, and occasionally try to suck on someone's neck, I'm going to label you a vampire. It's just the way I was raised. In light of recent events, however, I'm afraid I must report that while Cooper has grown out of his vampireness and never was, in fact, a ghost baby, it is very likely that my son is becoming a cannibal. It started out harmlessly enough. From the very beginning, Hannibal Cooper has been fixated on his hands. One of the first photos I ever posted of the little guy displayed him with his hand in his mouth. Lately, however, this fascination with eating his own hands has grown more serious. Here he is a couple of weeks ago:

No longer content to eat only one of his hands, he has now progressed to chewing on both hands at one time. Mind you, this is not some sort of absentminded gnawing but rather a voracious, businesslike approach to hand eating that is rarely seen in the wild. Terrifying, I know. But it didn't stop there. Recently, Cooper seems to have realized that, should he ever succeed in his plan to bite off his own hands, he would simultaneously become handicapped and lose the ability to practice his second favorite hobby (behind farting, of course). As such, he's moved on to the eating of other people's hands:

I made the mistake of resting my hand on his little chest while he gnawed on his own hands and within seconds, he grabbed hold of my finger and promptly stuck it in his mouth. He then proceeded to bite while GROWLING at me in a truly horrific and intimidating manner. (I would give just about anything to have gotten footage of this attack but alas my phone was 10 feet away and I'm extremely lazy these days.) The attack was savage and I am certain that the only reason I escaped with my life is because, you know, he doesn't have teeth. Even still, the memory haunts me. (*Sobs quietly*)

Unfortunately, there's more. Just a few days after he did his best to render me hand-less, Cooper took yet another step toward the dark side in his journey to cannibalism. Having cut his teeth (forgive the pun) on his own hands and gotten a taste for human flesh with his assault on me, Cooper became so desinsitized to the violence that he found the very idea of cannibalism in and of itself to be HILARIOUS. If you think your heart can take it, have a gander at the following footage in which an unnamed human (note: it's me) pretends to attack and eat Cooper's face and listen to his disturbing reaction:

http://youtu.be/9QuVj0eRT9Q

So there you have it. It's sad but I believe the evidence speaks for itself. My son, heaven help him, has become a cannibal. I only hope that my story can help other parents prevent their children from meeting a similar fate. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to purchase a baby-sized Hannibal Lecter mask.

Pretty sure CPS will find me if I Google "Baby-Sized Hannibal Lecter Mask", Brian