On Friday morning, I took Alex to Pump It Up for their $7 hour of open play time. I keep doing this because it's a cheap and easy way for me to have a happy boy for the rest of the day. He needs to get rid of his willies, as Dave says.
While Alex was off jumping around, I alternated between chasing Genoa, who has finally decided she'll actually walk instead of crawl, thankyouverymuch and sitting on the bench nursing her. She was doing that thing where she'd get cranky, nurse for thirty seconds and then decide nursing was boring, scream to get down and then go back to trotting around. Rinse, repeat.
Of course there were a ton of other mothers there doing pretty much the same thing as I was. One of them, whose baby was in the car seat in the stroller the whole time, observed Genoa walking and asked me how old she was. "She's ten months old today," I replied as I rolled my eyes, "but she's been doing this for two weeks." I said it with the tone of exasperation, not pride. Then I returned the question, "How old is your daughter?"
"Oh. She's ten months. And she's barely even crawling."
I told her she was lucky and then I said something about how having an early walker really robs you of the baby phase, yada yada yada, I give birth to toddlers. It's one of those grass is always greener things, methinks.
Then she snubbed me. I complemented her daughter's red hair and asked about how she was sleeping at night and I received one word answers with zero eye contact. I found it baffling and a bit childish.
Mom101 has an interesting post up about bragging about our children and how much easier it is to complain about them to other parents than it is to extol their virtues. Obviously no one likes a braggart (which is one of the many reasons I so often wonder why anyone keeps reading this website), but are we doing our children a disservice by poo-pooing their accomplishments to other parents? I find myself complaining about Genoa FAR more often than I brag about her. She is Difficult with a capital D; she won't wear a hat or take a bath; she hates to sleep; she screams bloody murder if I walk more than ten feet away, etc. I catch myself doing it all the time.
But then again her virtues are pretty obvious - she's beautiful, brilliant and looks like a drunken robot when she walks across the room.
The whole subject makes me uncomfortable, though. I'm honestly trying to look at myself and I'm wondering if I am a little obnoxious about my kids. I mean, obviously on my own website, I totally am and that's because my kids will someday read it, but I wonder if I brag too much to my friends. I can only remember doing it in that self-deprecating, eye-rolling way to be honest. And I actually ENJOY hearing when my friends tell me about their kids' accomplishments. I can't wait for Hannah to walk and for Amelie to crawl. I get almost as excited about their kids as I do about my own.
The other side of it, though, and the part that I even hate to mention because it's the weirdest part, is that I don't know how it feels to worry about my kids reaching milestones. Alex did everything so early that I barely had time to baby proof, much less worry that he was behind. So far, Genoa is just like her brother, so I don't know what it feels like to be the one whose baby isn't doing X or Y yet. I'm not sure how I would handle it, but aside from providing DNA, parents have very little to do with when their kids walk or talk or even potty train. I'm sure that wouldn't keep me from worrying, but still. I can't help it that my baby is already walking. Does that necessarily mean I should to be apologizing for it?
