development

Not the fundraising kind (development is the industry term for those of us who raise money for nonprofits.) Nope, today we are talking about developmental milestones. I just realized that this is going to be a weird topic. Not a weird topic to blog about necessarily, but a weird topic to try to discuss with others.

If you tell someone who is not a parent that your kid just did X - like said their first word or crawled or whatever, they don't really care and they probably don't know anything about the age a child is supposed to be when they do those things. So if you are like "My 3 month old is walking" they would be like "Oh, that's nice." (Three month old don't walk...and actually they shouldn't, even if they could, from what I'm reading.) So, there's no sense in sharing with them about how your baby is mimicking your facial expressions.

Now, here is the sticky part. If you tell a PARENT about your child's latest trick...ugh. I've just decided, that with a very few exceptions, I'm just not going to do this. If you say, as I have in the last week or two to quite a few people "Oh, Cassidy is holding her head up and has been for a while...and, get this, she rolled over last week..." (she did - from front to back. twice that I've seen.) There are a variety of possible reactions and there have been quite a range. For one thing, I've been light-heartedly accused of "bragging." Ugh. That just makes me feel so frustrated - I mean, if that is what people are going to think, how are you supposed to converse about your child...EVER??? People have also gotten all "well when babies reach early milestones, it's usually because their muscles are tight - you should have your doctor check her out."

Umm...she just rolled over a few times.

As I reflect on this, I just kind of realize that whether your child is right on track developmentally, hitting those milestones at the textbook times, or they are a little behind, or they are superbaby...it is probably best to just keep these things to conversations within the confines of close family and maybe a couple of extremely well adjusted friends...preferably those whose kids aren't the same age. Kevin and I have had a few really fun moments watching her do some amazing baby thing - there is no better feeling, in my opinion, than watching your kiddo do something for the first time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the only other human who responds with such excitement at Cassidy's latest achievement is...my mom.

The unsettling thing about this, though, is that it is the beginning of how things go the rest of our lives...our kids' achievement is this crazy competition. And surely, it only gets worse - right up until the announcement of the first string quarterback on the high school team, the crowning of the prom queen and the giving out of the last scholarship at the senior class awards banquet (depending on your priorities.) Although, just because your child is 18 - that doesn't mean the battle is over. People still gossip about whose adult child got laid off, who is still single, who is gay, who is getting divorced, who makes a lot of money and bought the fancy car, etc. It kind of puts a damper on the joy of child rearing.

Anyone up for joing my new club - the "Let's not be competitive and instead be supportive and happy for each other's child's achievements?" club. (?) We are taking applications for membership, currently.