Race of the Mommies

I always find it interesting how other mothers seem to obsess over comparing their child(ren) to others. It seems to happen at the play ground apon striking up conversation with a mom who's child pats the sand with his shovel. Or while waiting at the dental office for a check up. Or sometimes at other various places mothers cross pathways...play group, school, grocery stores, church, at the gym (I wish!). Anyway, it seems to happen a lot, this "my kid's _______er than yours" thing. (You can fill in the blank).
The conversation usually starts with a "How old is your little one?" The other mother generally replies with a fairly accurate tally of her offsprings age and if it's a new mom with just one child, she will usually answer by telling you the number of months, weeks, days, even hours old to tell you of her child's age. ( A simple 2yrs or 2 1/2 yrs. would be enough, stop making me do the math with your 27 months, 3 weeks, 2days and 13 hours answer!) Super MOM (whom I think a lot of moms out there think they are) will tell you not only their child's age in months, weeks, days and hours, will also tell you something along these lines: "Yes my child is potty trained, oh I know he's only 7 months, 1 week and 3.5 days old, but he was born trained and learned to walk at 4 moths. He's off the charts for his weight and height and our pediatrician concluded he will always be bigger than every other child, anywhere, ever. And of course he already knows his ABC's and can count to 10000000 unassisted. He is fluent in French, Japanese, and Swahili. He painted a repeat of the Mona Lisa yesterday, and during play group, he lead the children in a Beethoven classical while sharing his organic, sugar free sucker with the teacher. After that he read them the Chronicles of Narnia, start to finish. He's always slept thru the night, has never been ill, has all of his baby teeth including his 6 year molars and eats 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables everyday often asking for more.
But I can't take all the credit, although I am Super MOM and my whole house is organized into alphabetized totes and containers from IKEA that me and my fabulously rich husband bought on our trip to Sweden over the spring break. And all our organic, home made, completely perfectly nutritionally balanced meals are planned for a year in our perfectly co-ordinating, stylish, non toxic house that energy balancing chi masters built for us and feung shwayed for us for free.
No, some of the credit goes to his coaches and teachers of his activities; preschool, dance, soccer, chess club, piano, hockey, karate, art club, little musicians group, baby theater, tots yoga, baby zen and of course play group. And how about you, is your little girl out of diapers yet?"


Excuse me while I wipe away the tears...of laughter. I didn't know I could laugh so hard at my own writing! I know this is completely absurd, but it does seem like there's a lot of comparing between us moms and even more in our own head spaces. Maybe it's because I've stopped caring what other moms think, or perhaps I no longer have the time and energy to waste on comparing (something to do with having 3 kids I think.) All I'm saying is enjoy your own kids if ya got 'em and never mind what your kid may or may not be doing, eating, saying, playing with, etc. If there's a problem, you'll know. If not, just find your own normal for your family! Cheers!