We’ve all been there. You’re at the park, quietly watching your little while they play calmly in the sandbox with a broken shovel and a pine cone. From the corner of your eye, you see her approach, her seasonally appropriate attire clean and cute, her hair in a suspiciously full, yet contained top knot. In a moment of panic, you look down at your own outfit, and discover a dried out macaroni noodle stuck to your sweater in the exact location of your nipple. You manage to remove it just before she gets there, and breathe a temporary sigh of relief, but dread washes over you as you see the bright yellow semi-circle the noodle has left behind, creating a rather convincing “friendly cyclops” effect on your right boob.
It’s like this, but maybe just a few less noodles.
She delicately arranges herself on the edge of the sandbox, reusable coffee cup in one manicured hand, eco-friendly, gender neutral, Montessori toy in the other. And then, as if coming straight from a Hannah Andersson magazine shoot, in toddles the perfect toddler. This toddler is wearing matching everything, and unlike your child, they don’t have walrus-like tusks of snot hanging off their face. They enter the sandbox, and in the distance you hear the faint, but distinct, sound of bells signaling the start of round one.
These guys rolling up to the sand box is (marginally) more terrifying than finding a clown in a dark alley.
For a few seconds, nothing happens, and you think “Maybe this is the nanny? Oh please be the nanny…” But this thought is interrupted by the seemingly innocent complement/question one-two punch, “She is so cute! How old is she?” And it begins. For those of you who don’t yet have kids, this seems so harmless. “She’s just being nice!” you may say. But really, like a raptor testing the fence, she’s just found her way in. “She’s 15 months,” you reply. And then because you don’t want to come off like the ogre you feel like, you reply with “I love your daughter’s shoes. How old is she?” Here’s where it gets serious. Secretly you are hoping and praying her kid is at least 6 months older. Look at the way she scoops the sand, and dumps it in to the bucket with such accuracy! And did she just speak in full sentences? She has to be at least 22 months. “My little angel is 14 months!” she says, confirming your worst fears.
From here it gets ugly quick. You discover that her little princess started sleeping through the night at 2 months, and continues to do so, in her own bed. She sat up at 3 months. She crawled at 5 months. She walked at 8 months. She is basically potty trained. She speaks three languages, not including sign language, which she can also do comfortably. It is after finding out she saved the preschool hamster by giving it the Heimlich that you look over at your own offspring, and discover they are currently chewing on a sand-covered apple core they’ve just unearthed.
Sand. In your teeth. It hurts me to even type that.
Before you get too down on yourself, let’s pump the brakes on this train wreck and put things in perspective. It’s horribly cliché to say “every baby is different,” but it’s the most simple way to put something that is, quite simply, the truth.
I find myself getting caught up in this nonsense still, when some over-achieving wonder-tot spits some crazy toddler knowledge at Baby 1.0 and me. Just this weekend, we shared the sandbox with an 18 month old who could speak in full sentences (we actually witnessed it), and according to his mom, could read. Baby 1.0 doesn’t even really have a word yet, and while she knows what the word “nose” is, she can actually only locate it on my face maybe 60% of the time (for the record, my nose is in the standard location, midway between both ears, on the front of my face). But instead of (me) pooping in the sandbox and going home and ordering the entire Baby Einstein series off Amazon in a panic, which I considered, my husband and I just shrugged and told ourselves, “Every baby is different. She will get there.”
These comparisons are often not malicious, as I too, find myself wondering how Baby 1.0 stacks up against the average toddler. But sometimes they sure can feel that way. My guess is I’m not alone in feeling judged, or in all honesty, judging every once in a while (every day). Our babies are like our own little 4H projects, and just like when the judge comes to your stall and points out your cow has a googly eye, you feel like you need to compensate and tell him all about how, googly eye and all, your magnificent cow is able to sweep the barn if you attach the special sweeping mitts you made to her feet. Maybe this hasn’t happened to anybody else, but you get the point. Every baby has their downfalls, but I’ll be damned if there aren’t 10 things that make up for that downfall.
This cow does not have a googly eye. It does, however, have what appears to be a case of cow narcolepsy.
I think for my own sanity, I need to replace the question “is my baby is better?” with the acknowledgement that “every baby is different” more readily. I should make it my mantra, and carry it with me, probably for the rest of my life. I can only imagine these comparisons continue, in some degree, forever.
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Image credits:
Hold Me, Don't Hold ME 
That first pic reminds me of how my baby boy wants to taste EVERYTHING I drink. Even beer. Even wine. Even coffee. I figure a TEENY tiny taste can’t hurt him, so I do let him have a taste, but I’m always surprised that he doesn’t seem to hate the beer. Or the wine. Or the coffee. One time he even stuck his whole hand into my coffee cup just so he could lick the coffee off.
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That’s exactly our daughter to a T. She’s especially fond of chasing ice cubes around your water glass if you’re not careful. And I agree, a little taste isn’t going to hurt. I was just talking to my hubs about cough remedies, and how when we were little it was a spoonful of whisky and honey.
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My friend has a baby who is teething, and the cream they have for his sore gums is 60% proof alcohol.
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This is so funny to me! I’m a high school student and I take a Human Development class and this is all so true! You hear about this happening all the time:)
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You’re in the thick of it, then, aren’t you? I bet you hear about parents comparing their teens to others all the time. Good luck with your class!
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Yup exactly! Everybody compares what college they are getting into and how their son/daughter helps around the house or doesn’t:) And Thank you<3
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Yuck. Well from one adult to basically another, everybody grows up. I hope you get into where ever you want!
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Exactly that’s how I feel! Thank you I got into my first choice, even if it wasn’t an Ivy League:)
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That is wonderful! Congrats. College, no matter where you go, is pretty amazing. Enjoy the rest of your senior year.
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Thank you!
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Love this article! I’m new to parenting, but I have already felt the comparisons. There was a recent baby boom with people I graduated with. There are videos on Facebook of their babies doing things my baby cannot yet do. I am constantly asking “Mr. Google” questions on baby development. And I panic thinking I have to be doing something wrong, and how can I have ruined my child’s development in a few short weeks! I’m frequently reminding myself that every child develops at their own pace. I hope I can bite my tongue when my child is compared to another in person!!
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Thanks for reading it! I google things every day. You’re totally right, they all do it at their own pace. I say, the next time someone is comparing their kid to yours, bite your tongue, but then tell me all about it 😉 I’d love to swap horror stories!
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As mother of twins I learnt my lesson early enough, every baby really is different! I see it every day how one can do one thing and the other can’t. Boy started walking at 15 months and girl at 18 and everyone was oh so concerned. She can put socks on herself whereas he won’t even try! Despite this inside knowledge I often feel judged too! I swear every time parents are put in the same room they automatically go in judging mode. My kids don’t wear anything remotely matching. And God forbid my little boy likes to wear hello kitty stuff like his sister! That is completely socially unaccepted! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it always makes me feel better that I am not the only one!
Btw I love the sand picture 🙂
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Thanks for reading my thoughts! You are far from the only one, which is probably my favorite thing about blogging. So funny how they can be so different! And I wish I could take credit for the sand pic- I love it, too, but that cutie doesn’t belong to me, just found her floating around the interwebs. Thanks for the follow, too. Hope you enjoy my musings!
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Oh well, good choice of picture then! I can definetely see myself running to your blog in my moments of discomfort 😉
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This is why I don’t take my children to the park. Actually, I do. Sometimes I want to pretend I’m deaf when others want to talk to me, however. Saving the hamster with the Heimlich Maneuver–nice one!
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I totally agree. Probably my favorite move is “oh man, did you poop?” and then you get a free pass out of wherever you are. If we ever meet in the sandbox, and you hear me say that, you are free to call my bluff 😉
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Hopefully you wouldn’t say that with me. Then again, you might want to just to get away from the crazy deaf woman repeatedly trying to sign to you.
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Something tells me if we met in a sandbox, we leave together and grab a beer 🙂
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Haha! Yes, and then rush back again when we realize we left our kids there!
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This was hilarious! Thank you for a great read.
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