The first law of motherhood is "Never Compare". At least, that should be the first law of motherhood for all mothers who don't want to go crazy with worry or get a little too excited about their child's potential for success based on the fact that they are "advanced". I have had conversations with a couple of different people who have told me that they made the same decision I did, namely to stop reading those child development books so as to get off the Milestone Merry-Go-Round.
When I was first pregnant with E., K. and I had a secret nickname for him. We called him "OLT', which stood for "Our Little Troll". You see, there may have been a few moments in time when K. and I were not exactly kind about someone else's little bundle of joy. Oh, not to their faces, you understand. It was more the kind of thing where we would get in the car and start snickering and say to each other, "Now could that child win the title of 'World's Ugliest Baby', or what?" or "Did she or did she not look just like a monkey?". I know, it wasn't nice or mature, but it was very funny. When we found out we were pregnant, we both realized that if the universe were to be fair, we would have a baby who wasn't just ugly, but was ugly and smelly to boot.
What we got was perhaps not the 'World's Most Gorgeous Baby', but the second runner up at least. He was a beautiful child from the day he was born. People would invountarily exclaim about how pretty he was, and then apologize to us for calling our son "pretty". We never minded--he was extremely pretty, and a pleasant, even tempered baby as well.
As time went on, however, it became apparent that our pretty, pleasant, even tempered son was not worried about hitting the baby milestones on target, or even close to target. He wanted to take his good old time about things, and so he did. He did not roll over early, nor crawl early, nor walk early. He has never been early for anything. As time went along, I got tired of worrying about the milestones, and so I stopped reading about them so as not to know which milestone in particular we were in the process of missing.
As I read around on some of my favorite BLOGs, it seems lately that all of the other toddler moms are having cute little toddler conversations which their children like this and this and this. Or even this. Well, I am not having conversations with E., who I will admit publicly is 21-months-old, because he doesn't talk and really doesn't have any words. Here, for the sake of posterity, is a real live conversation in our house:
Me: "Can you say Dada?"
E.: (looks at me bemusedly for one milisecond, then returns to previous activity)
Me: "E., can you say Dada?" (with more emphasis)
E.: (glances in my general direction, and then picks nose contentedly)
Me: "Please try to say Dada!"
E.: (realizes I am not going to stop, and gives me a half-hearted grunt)
Me: "Good job! Can you say Dada again?"
E.: (looks at me like I am crazy with something approaching exasperation in his eyes) "dadadadadadadadadadada"
Me: "Wow, that was really good! Can you say Dada? Just Dada?"
E.: "dada."
Me: "Those are some nice words. Mama really likes your words. Can you say Mama?" (I know I am pushing my luck, but I am obsessed by this point)
E.: "dada." (with a big, knowing smile)
And folks, there you have it. A complete toddler conversation at our house, without any real toddler participation at all.
Fortunately for all of our sanities, E. decided last week to say "uh oh" appropriately, like when he drops something or breaks something or is covered in some unmentionable, unidentifiable substance. So my jealousy declines gradually. And I await his next words and our first mother-son talk.
Posted by grrlTravels at August 23, 2004 3:09 PM