Oh, it's so on.
I spoke with Kate on the phone this afternoon for the first time in years. I told her that Spawnling was doing this, that and the other thing. What does she do afterwards? Links me to this.
As you can hear, she's dubbed it the Baby Olympics. It's most likely a spinoff of the Bitch Olympics, which I'm a seasoned player of (and I come up with all the catchy sayings. I'm so fetch.) She knows not with whom she battles. She knows not that I and the Spawnling rule the mom games stadium with our stupid baby tricks.
There are many neat/scary things that Spawnling can do at 3 1/2 months. I'm only going to show one of them tonight. It's a headgame, you see. If I put before Kate and Boston all of his super powers, it's game over too quickly. Just as a cat likes to play with its food before eating it, I enjoy slowly shaming my opponent through a handful of blog entries instead of in one fell swoop.
So, dear Kate, here is Spawnling *cough* sitting.
Independently.
What, you say? You don't believe me, you say? I could have taken my hand off of him for two seconds to take the picture or attached a string from his head to the ceiling, you say?
Well, fear not, I reply. For here is a video. The Maven comes prepared for her baby's battles.
And no, he didn't fall over as soon as I turned the camera off. He didn't and you can't prove otherwise.
*~*~*
Obviously Kate and I are joking (and Boston totally wins on abundant smiles and survival with a toddler brother), but the funny/sad thing is that this kind of competition is spread across the motherhood community like cream cheese on a toddler's face. It's incredible how many parents base their self-worth on how fast their baby is reaching milestones. Like somehow this means the parents are doing a better job. Their baby is smarter. Their baby is stronger. Their baby is going to go to Harvard while the Smith's baby is headed for a life of dispair and community college. And all because he's an early crawler. Didn't you know that it makes all the difference?
The older gremlins both walked at nine months. Great, right? We should be damn proud. Our genetics are good and strong and powerful and all that stuff. We can brag about it to everyone.
Oh, hang on a sec. We can't because we're too busy chasing after walking nine-month-olds. And crying because said nine-month-olds are destroying things that they shouldn't be able to reach and toddling into roads they shouldn't be able to toddle into just yet. They don't understand the words 'No... Please, child, no.... For the love of God and mommy's sanity, no...' Babies don't get those things.
Or perhaps I just had stupid babies. Stupid, walking babies. That's also a possibility. They done walk good, but the thinkin' ain't to swift.
There's always a downside to fast learning babies. The maternal side of me would like them to take it a little slower. I like my babies to stay babies for a while. I never wanted them to sit faster, walk faster, do things faster. I'd like to leave that to people who are insecure enough to want to feel superior through their children's accomplishments. I'm a generous soul that way. I have plenty of things to feel insecure about. I don't need more material, like how quickly my babies reach milestones.
Frankly, Spawnling is growing up far too quickly for my liking. He's very active, inquisitive and strong like I've never seen. Neither of the other two were sitting at three months. Neither of them were finding things they could use to pull themselves up to standing at this age. He seems eager to join the fray and drive my already frazzled brain to the breaking point with his brothers. It's completely unfair and I don't like it. And if his brothers walked at nine months, how likely it is that he's going to even wait that long? I sometimes long for the days when he was a microscopic being in his pod within my womb, mapping out the ways in which he'd inflict torture upon me. Ahh, the good, non-busy times...
It's all Geekster's fault, actually. The other day we were discussing where the gremlins get all their strength. I was uberlazy and walked at around eighteen months. No interest in physical activity (shocking, I know). Geekster had always figured he walked somewhere around a year.
Well wouldn't you know his father informed us that my darling husband had, in fact, walked at eight months and a week?
I could have killed both of them. Geekster for passing these genetics on to three children I spend the bulk of my time chasing after and my father-in-law for not informing me of this sooner so that I could have thought twice about having Geekster's babies.
Ergo, in order to feed both my love for babies and my desire to have them stay little longer, I will need to have an affair. I need weaking sperm, please. Wussy tadpoles only. Please submit your applications to The Maven, along with a brief summary of your first year accomplishments, signed by any living relatives.
Thanks.