I’m a Mommy Too!

we spent the weekend in san antonio.  d had a conference, and nate and i tagged along for fun and moral support.  as he always does on trips, nate seemed to age a month while we were away.  poor d had lots of work and stress, but here are some shots of the fun nate and i had.

 on the plane.  despite spending several hours on a few different planes and even more time in airports, he is still saying “bird” every time he sees a plane.  i’m correcting him, but it’s half hearted, because it’s so cute.

 san antonio has a river that trails through the downtown area.  there are tons of tourboats as well as water taxis, and as we well know, nate loves any mode of transportation.  this is his expression of wonder as we cruised along in the barge-type boat.  it was a 35 minute tour, and he talked through most of it.  “boat! duck! boat! duck!” er… it was more like “bo! duh! bo! duh!”

 nate and i ordered breakfast in the room one morning, after we discovered he now loves scrambled eggs.

we found a playground down the street from our hotel, it had lots of areas where grown-ups couldn’t fit.  at first it was stressful for nate, because he’s sometimes hesitant to go through and under things without a mom.  but as you can see, he loved it after a little while.  do you remember when you first discovered how fun it is to lean back in a swin and look up at the sky?  i watched nate discover that on friday.  i love the one of him crouching — it’s so good to see him not just walking, but navigating different terrains, stretching high, bending down, all the more challenging stuff.

 we hit the children’s museum on saturday, and the most popular part was of course the trolley.  in and out, up and down the aisle, on the stool off the stool… you get the idea.

nate has a tendency to learn a new word and use it over and over and over, at the beginning not really appropriately.  like when he learned book, he would sit in the car just saying “boo” repeatedly.  last night, he was holding a spoon that i wanted to put in the dishwasher and i took it from him and said “thank you.”  a few minutes later he said “quack you!”  it took us a minute, but we realized he was saying thank you!  and he said it all day today, not necessarily at the right times.  just “quack you!” whenever he felt like it.  we can’t stop laughing.

today nate and i went to the playground with some friends in the neighborhood, and their daughter.  nate is really walking now, and he seemed so happy to be able to follow the other kids around!

almost since nate was born, people want to know what he’s DOING.  is he holding his head up, rolling over, smiling, sleeping through the night, sitting up, mimicking faces, getting teeth, commando crawling, eating solids, regular crawling, standing, cruising, walking, talking…?  what is he DOING?  i find it kind of exhausting.  i love talking about nate more than anything else — i love showing pictures, telling stories, everything.  but i feel so bad for babies and children, always being inspected.

it’s no secret that nate is/was a bit of a late walker and talker, and we’ve had our moments of concern.  we had a long talk with our pediatrician about it at his 18 month visit, and felt good about her evaluation.  we trust her and we felt good about the discussion, but of course it gives us pause.

we were still carrying that around with us a day or two later, when we in a nearby playground, and decided to walk down the block for dinner.  as we passed the toystore where nate loves to play with the “choos,” he tried to steer us inside.  it was early, so we obliged, and he toddled over to the train table.  there was another little boy there, and a harried-looking mom, and she had a little baby, too.  after a minute or two, as we were talking to each other’s kids, we got to talking with the mom, too.  the second sentence out of her nouth was “he’s three he still wears diapers he still takes a bottle at night.”

since then i’ve been noticing just how much confessing moms do.  i try not to take part, but of course i make excuses for – or maybe just jokes about – nate’s limited vocabulary and tiny, toddling steps at 18 months.  i don’t think i degrade him, but i am guilty of mentioning his late developments quickly, before other people can say anything, or before they ask.  i’d rather not be on the defensive.  i just wish i could ease mothers’ minds — barring some huge neglect, i am not going to judge you for your kid’s using a pacifier, taking a bottle, scooting on his tush instead of crawling, or even for his tantrums or rough behavior.

i wish we could all just assume that the other moms around us would be understanding, supportive, and non-judgmental.  certainly plenty of us judge plenty of the time, but don’t you think most moms understand that kids are just doing their own things, working every day to be themselves?