Turning the other cheek

OK, the secret is out, so no point hiding it – Aimee hurt another child. Yep, can’t deny it, she hurt another child real bad. I turned up at nursery to pick her up and the carer told me in hushed tones that Aimee bit on the cheek of another child who subsequently had to receive some First Aid.
This totally shocked me. What on Earth happened? Our lovely, playful little bunny had, in one instant, turned cold-blooded cannibal. Aimee certainly never did anything like this before and it was extremely out of character. None of the carers saw exactly what happened, but Aimee was quietly and perfectly happy one minute (hogging the lego box as usual) when another kid went up to her. The next thing they knew, the kid was bawling his eyes out and clinging to his cheek in pain. Aimee, apparently, carried on playing. They think that possibly the boy harassed Aimee or provoked her in some way and she reacted by biting him. Cat and I are speechless with guilt and regret about the incident. The other parents were ok about it though. They just accepted that these things happen.
Having said that, I am certainly aware that physical aggression can and does happen as part of the ‘growing up and learning’ phase of toddlerhood. I have personally witnessed Aimee being slapped on the head and in the face on two occasions at the nursery. They were not too serious (not as much as eating a cheek), but it does happen. Of course there were also the nasty incidents when we were out and about where evil little (older) toddler boys would deliberately push Aimee over. It is not nice and to be honest, unpreventable to some extent, unless we wrap her up in cotton wool.
Aimee is getting to the stage where she understands simple commands and perhaps the tone, if not the meaning of our utterances, so we’ll continue to teach her what is right and what is wrong.
But rubbish news reports such as this one, just add to the guilt trip and paranoia that us working parents have to put up with.