That Mom

I am working very hard on not being "that Mom" on the playground/in the office/at the activity.  We all know the stereotype: talks incessantly about all her child's accomplishments while degrading your child's (e.g. "Bugaboo is walking now." "Superhumanchild has been doing that forever, he is really almost running."  As if next week she is signing him up for the Olympic trials.) , lectures you about what you feed your child (e.g. "Are you feeding your child processed food?" Asked while you feed your kid applesauce that has high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors.), lectures you about your parenting style (e.g. "Spanking is not good for children-it's barbaric." Said while you are spanking your kid for throwing a tantrum after they pulled some little girls hair and she cried.) and in general makes you feel like you are behind in every way (e.g. "Have you got Bugaboo on the list yet for [insert name of incredibly expensive and snobby pre-school that feeds into the incredibly expensive and snobby private school]?  I put Superhumanchild on a year ago.  Did I mention that I got a promotion and the volunteer of the year award last week?"  Said to you when you have not slept in days, you have no makeup on and the shirt you are wearing has dried up food and spit up stains, while you check your blackberry and see an email from work needing something else after you left and forgot the papers at work.). A friend of mine sent me a really funny link to an animation about this Mommy-centered competition that we do.  (Maybe Dad's do it too, but Adrian likes to retort that Teddy is so advanced that he still needs a diaper and that his puppy was easier to potty train than Teddy.)   I am really trying not to be that Mom. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am incredibly proud of my darling son and, if you read this blog regularly, you probably know that already.  I love that he rolled over quickly (even if it was because he was born superhumanly large and was already in 3rd grade at 2 weeks old), crawled early and walked early.  I am very proud of all of these things, but they have absolutely nothing to do with me or with Adrian.  In fact, I am 100% sure they are attributable to being in daycare and watching his friends do them all day long and wanting to be like them.  I wish I could take credit for them but the simple truth is that much of his advancement has little to do with me and is all about his personality.  My amazing Godmother Ernestine wrote me about my last post and said that maybe they treated us like little adults but that we have to let kids be kids.  And frankly, kids are messy, develop at totally different paces, learn to walk, talk and eat regardless of what we do, and will misbehave no matter style of discipline we adopt.  So I am going to take this good advice and try to be less caught up in the pace of Teddy's development (but really, I long for the day that he will just tell me what is wrong instead of throwing a tantrum and will just do what I tell him to do instead of what he wants to do, is that really asking too much of a 1 year old?). 

I tell a single girl I work with here in the office that I have 2 pieces of advice about your single years:
1.  Spend all the money you want to on all the clothes, purses and shoes while you can.  In fact, stock up because when you marry someone like Adrian, that will quickly be put to a screeching halt. 
2.  Travel all you want and veg in front of the TV all you want.  Free time becomes a thing of the past.  All my "free time" now is devoted to Teddy and I LOVE LOVE LOVE every single minute.  (In fact, I actually cannot remember what I used to do at night and on the weekends before Teddy.  Apparently, I used to do things but I have no idea what they were and how I filled up that much time...oh wait, I watched a lot of TV, cooked meals, had dinner with friends, saw movies, got manicures and pedicures regularly, went to the gym and went on weekend getaways.  Yeah, I would not trade it all, not even for a minute.  I even find that the nursery rhymes get stick in my head and I sign them instead of whatever is on the radio...Allee Galoo Galoo.)

So if I have an episode of being "that Mom" please excuse me, I am a work in progress. But if you hear me tell you that I just heard a seal crying, then slap me, I have gone over the edge and way too far.