What To Expect.....

Do you ever get those emails that say, "Your baby is x months old! Now, he should be eating rack of lamb, doing advanced algebra, and leaping tall buildings in a single bound"?

Instead of an interesting read about early childhood development, they become a little panic-inducing.

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Grayson is usually doing the things he should be doing, according to these updates. I think, yeah, he's walking/running/climbing/jumping and he can build a tower of 6 blocks on his own, and he can say and wave bye-bye by opening and closing his hand, he can even point to what he wants with his index finger. He has about 4 or 5 words that he uses daily, er weekly.

But, he does NOT drink from a cup. I haven't even thought about letting him drink from a cup on a day-to-day basis without a lid or a spout and I wonder, briefly, am I holding him back? Should he be serving up some lemonade and cookies? Should I call the doctor????

I don't.

But as a parent, we are always trying to one up other kids.

"Oh, Susie can count to 13?? My Billy could sing the Star Spangled Banner at 13 months! Ha! Beat that!!"

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Every kid develops at a different rate. Grayson may not be singing his ABC's, but he can use a spoon for his morning Cheerios and he can throw a ball overhand at least 3-4 feet. He's not interested in precise words, he just assumes calling everything "ehh". He can't be bothered to respond to, "Grayson, do you need to go potty?" or to sit still long enough for me to read half a sentence in his story books, but he can hoist himself around, through, and over furniture like he's training to be America's tiniest gladiator.

I remember reading the "at eleven months my baby should be able to respond to simple questions like, "Where's your mouth?" by pointing to his mouth, and should understand the word "no"."

Ummm, okay. He definitely knows where his body parts are and he understands the word "no" but I still have never heard him say it. I ask him where his mouth is all the time, and he just looks at me like I'm nuts. Either he's thinking, "Obviously it's on my face, where it's been every other time you've asked this week," or "Why are you so obsessed with my mouth, lady?" Maybe he just hears the Charlie Brown-type "wah wah wah wah wah," which is also what he hears when I tell him not to touch the remote control or push the X-BOX buttons. And if I ask him where his belly button is, he lifts up MY shirt and crams his sticky little finger in My belly button. When asked where his nose is, he automatically sniffs his nose. So he's getting there.

I don't think he's way off track by any means, I just think he does things on his own time.........Moody time. It's what Kevin used to say to people when we were late......."We're on Moody time". (It's my maiden name, people......the Moody's are notorious for being late.)

We had his 18 month check up today and Dr. Nail was very impressed.

He walked in the exam room as Grayson was blowing bubbles. He looked kinda shocked and asked me, "Has he been doing this very long?" "What? Blow bubbles? I guess for a few weeks now......should he not be...." "No, that's great! I've just never seen an 18 month old actually blow bubbles through one of those bubble makers before."

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"Oh...... well he's got skills, doc!"

It made me proud. My son doesn't speak English but he can blow bubbles and jump and play pretend and give kisses and that's ok.

The things Grayson's doing usually aren't in the updates.

It never says,

"Congratulations! Your baby is now 248 weeks old! He should be smiling and laughing at every bird he sees, rearranging lightweight furniture, and wedging himself in small places he can't figure out how to get out of.

He's probably extremely skilled at removing toilet paper from the roll, and making fart noises on the edge of the bath tub. He makes weird, wonderful noises by doing some sort of nasal-y hum in the back of his throat that may remind you of Chewbaca from Star Wars. He probably likes to throw himself at you, tackle you, then crawl back and forth across you while laughing. He gives out endless hugs and likes to turn off all the light switches before bed. He may call out "Mammmmmmma" when he can't find you. He may even get really, really mad when you don't let him have pens/scissors/bank statements/hot drinks/and toilet bowl plungers.

In the next few weeks you should be planning ways to keep him from hysterically throwing tantrums, giving poop as presents, and jumping off coffee tables without bean bags being there to catch his fall. Yeh, I'm not even kidding. He seriously thinks he's Evil Canieval.

Whatever, if the name fits........evil.

I think it's time to pay a little less attention to the update emails, before they start telling me that, by two, he should be counting to 350 and writing his name.

I've got a feeling that my kid just might be the sort who will write his first initial in pee in the snow before he scrawls his name with crayon on a piece of paper.

And that's not going to be in any child development newsletter.