Toddler Samples Mouse In Her Mouth, Nation Gets Queasy

8-month-old mouse connoisseur Alanah Barba (screenshot / ABC)

While we remember fighting over the ambulance in day care (you know who you are, ambulance hoggers), we don't recall interacting with rodents until our first apartment. Eight-month-old Alanah Barba was recently found playing with a mouse in her mouth at a Newark day care center. "Lately, she's been vomiting. Everything she's eaten, she's throwing it back up," Alanah's mother Brittany tells ABC. On the other hand, it's never too early to read your children Stuart Little.

The child suffered no bites, and her family believes the mouse was dead when she placed it in her mouth. Kiburi Tucker, a father of five and executive director of the day care center, says this sort of thing never happens. "This was an isolated incident, I was really hurt by this, it could have been my child."

Tucker insists that it happened due to a "split second of a turned head," and was not an indication of poor supervision. Exterminators now come twice a month. Still, there is a school of thought among today's modern parents that playing with dead rodents is good for a child's development, and for racking up major hits on their YouTube channels.

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By Christopher Robbins in News on January 21, 2012 10:00 AM

Comments [rss]

miss_subways

That video is amazing! I would not have had the guts to sling a dead animal over my bare shoulder as a little girl.

felixthecat

hope she does go vegetarian and how is this any different from eating pigs, cows, goats, lamb. etc?? Go vegan

Sulayman

Typically, when I eat an animal, it's Cooked, and not a vermin that's known to carry pestilence. My beef hasn't been playing on subway tracks or near my septic tank.

nicemarmot

An eight-month-old is a toddler? My kid's almost eight months old, he definitely isn't up to toddling yet. He does stick everything in his mouth, though. I'm sure he'd regard dead mouse as a delicacy.

TheRealCannibal

just a little extra protein!

SFNY

Great narcissism, Mr. Tucker.

Peter Rosa

I understand that live baby rat is a delicacy in China.

Freddi BuBu

No, rat embryos - dipped in soy sauce....

AuntySemantic

And all along I thought it was hoisin sauce.

TrollyMcTrollington

Uh oh, bubonic plague anyone?

Sulayman

Pretty uncommon, about 9 cases in the US a year. Then again, playing with a dead rat is also pretty uncommon.

thenab

If those parents in the vid were black and letting their child play with a dead rodent..

Lets just say people would have called child services.

Jacqui Samuels

Thenab, Isn't that the truth. But no...lets post a video of the child playing with it...NOT washing her hands....and mom smiling and grabbing the family doggie who is the KILLER and posing with the KILLEE. Can we say infections? Rabies? SOMETHING. awww its CUTE isn't it...laugh laugh...HEE HEE....aww look how cute little Beth plays with the dead animal....lets pose with it for our holiday cards next year.