Bitten

Clara had a rather traumatic experience at Karstadt yesterday. We went to have coffee with Natalie after school, and then Andras, Chris, and Joanna met us there for dinner. Clara was sitting in the high chair eating her dinner when an older boy came over to see her. I thought he was about 3 or 3 1/2, but Andras later said he thought he overheard the mother tell someone he was 20 months and big. Anyway, he was very interested in her, and of course she was loving the attention. They were touching each other, he was stroking her hand, she was patting his hair, she was giggling away. Then suddenly Joanna said 'oh he's got her hand in his mouth', and I looked just in time to see him clamp down hard on her fingers and hold on as long as he could. I had to wrestle her hand out of his mouth because he didn't want to let go! At first she just had this really shocked look on her face, like she didn't understand why he was hurting her, and then she began to shriek and scream. The mother was very apologetic, of course, but it was all quite upsetting for Clara, and also for us to see her so confused and upset. Anyway, she's fine now, but he did leave deep toothmarks on her knuckles for quite some time.