Get out of the womb --let the great baby race begin.
It starts about five minutes after they're born: the questions, the numbers, the comparisons, the charts. Is he/she latching on? How many wet diapers do you get a day? What about poopy ones? It goes on and on. Sleeping through the night yet? Talking? Walking?
Quit Stalking!!!
I don't fall into the trap easily, but people that do are really annoying, and although I don't usually have the nerve to say it, I have the perfect response: "The day they start issuing scholarships to Harvard for being the first to (insert milestone here), then that's the day I'll start worrying, until then, I'll let my kid be a kid for as long as necessary. In the end they'll all be (insert milestone here) and (insert milestone here) and if they don't, then we'll have bigger problems to concern ourselves with."
Both of my kids are talkers, not walkers. M has been babbling about for months. She met her quota for 18 months long ago. J was the same way. By two years one could have a pretty good little conversation going. But the steps didn't come easily or early. J was about 14 months when he started his upright journey through life.
At M's 12 month appointment, the doc told me that if she wasn't walking by 15 months to give her a call. Fifteen months came and went without any significant mileage clocked and so I called. "Give her one more month," she said, "if she's not walking by then we may have to send her to physical therapy just to be sure it's all okay."
Even that didn't concern me. I knew M would walk and I didn't care if she had to go to PT before she did. She stood, balanced, and took a few steps here and there, it just wasn't her primary means of transporting herself around yet.
And then on January 22 it was.
The girl went to Charlie's Safari and checked her inhibitions at the door. She let loose and hasn't slowed down. Today at BabyGym she was climbing up the steps on the slide where last week I still had to sit her on top of it.
We now have a walker and a talker in the house, but who's keeping score anyway?
So true! F is just the opposite. She has very few words, but who has time for vocab when you have laps around the house to sprint and things to climb? They each do it in their own time and their own order! Way to go M!
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