Not really. I just wanted to see how it felt to say that.
Ever look a parent in the eye and you are sure this is what she is saying to herself? Or maybe she is saying, "yeah my kid got past that MONTHS ago and is NOW onto (insert bigger and better thing here)". And some parents actually do say this. I know some.
One of my good friends posted in her blog about keeping up. Trying to keep her competitive and perfectionist nature at bay in regards to her daughter, particularly in comparison to other kids.
I get this. I so get this.
How can you not look around at other children your child's age and wonder, "should my kid be doing that too? How old is that kid, he has to be at least 2 years older right?"
What it really comes down to is, "what am I doing wrong as a parent that my kid can't do that?" While we all know that kids excel at different things and isn't going to be the best at everything (though some parents I know claim their kids are indeed...), it is still a source of anxiety.
There are some things that Leif excels at and enjoys doing - riding his trike is one. Though now we are transitioning to the bike and that is proving to be a touch more difficult and frustrating for him. We are lucky in that we have a bike path behind our house that has no motorized traffic and we aim to walk on it everyday. This has afforded him lots of opportunity for trike riding and his tricycle shows it. It was crumbling underneath him. Our intentions were to get him a bike in May or so, but the state of the trike dictated moving that up on the timeline. He is still a touch small for the big boy bike, so a steep learning curve is ahead of him.
He is a good swimmer for his age, but has been in swimming consistently for a couple years now. If he wasn't decent for his age I would think I was throwing money out the window. Leif excels at numbers, but to me, he comes by this honestly with parents who enjoy and studied mathematical applications into graduate school. He says "thank you", "please", "no thank you", "sorry". The fact that he has to remind us of our manners regularly is an indication that he did not learn this at home. I pay good money for his Montessori education thank you very much.
Then there are the ones we don't have locked up - he still struggles with poop training at 3.5 years old. He can't be bothered to do anything artistic for more than three minutes and only then it is upon request by me (this has GOT to be AB coming out in him). He doesn't sit quietly anytime even for chocolate (which says a lot) - what are other parents doing - drugging their children? While we are good with numbers, letter recognition is very hit or miss. He has lucked out that his name is short and essentially four lines with various squiggles... this was not intentional when we looked towards the day he might be trying to actually write his name.
The past few months we have also encountered a new aspect to parental competitiveness. Our daughter.
Those same feelings still exist with regards to other babies in her room and who we know. (That little girl in her class who was walking at 8 months? Show off.) But now we have a new one.
"Remember when Leif was one year old," I said to AB the other night, "wasn't he doing a lot more at that point?"
Inevitably we have started comparing our own children's abilities. Our conclusion has been that Skadi is a much "younger" one year old than Leif was. Her teachers agree she is on the young side, but right now that doesn't bother me as it ensures her a little more time in the infant room with her doting teacher who we all love.
I am pretty sure we have done this to her. She hasn't had our undivided attention whereby we could focus on her skills one on one. Take for example the other night when she was "walking" between AB and I.
We would do this for 30 minutes at a time with Leif until HE didn't want to do it anymore. The other night we had 10 minutes before Leif needed to get in the bathtub and so we held her hands and walked her back and forth. Twice. Before Leif NEEDED to stand between us and be a part of the game. Only his version meant dancing with Skadi in the middle or making her crawl over the mountain named Leif. (And she should have roared like a lion when on top... but she didn't.)
The fact that she isn't walking yet and probably won't be anytime really soon I put somewhat on myself. Who knows how much of it is me or just who she is. And she isn't her brother.
So while I bemoan the fact that she is a second child who never, ever will get as much attention as her brother had. I also have to remind myself of what she has. Something that as an oldest child, I always wanted. A big brother. A brother who thinks she is the coolest thing around and offers her a substantial amount of attention - some wanted, some not. She does something my son never had the opportunity to do, light up just by seeing him smile at her. Which sends me nearly to puddle stage as a mom.
Sure, I try not to compare her to Leif. She is her own person. Just like I tell myself not to compare my kids to their peers. But I maintain that if I was really good at not paying attention to what other kids were doing, it would mean I wasn't being a good observant parent. I believe that by expecting a lot of my children, they will live up to that. It's what my and AB's parents did with us - and I think we turned out pretty good!
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