Dare we say AVERAGE???

Average is a perfectly harmless word, don't you think? That is what I thought, until I realized that when you are talking about anything related to your very own child, average is deadly. Everything in the world of babies is measured and ranked. As soon as he was born they assigned him an APGAR score, or a number from 0-2 in five categories related to his appearance, activity level, etc. (Ben scored a 9 both times....above average, I'd say!) Then you are weighed and measured monthly and placed on a chart and the doctor offers a percentile. (No updates from the earlier posting....still below average at the 5th percentile.) And then when you are between doctor visits and harmlessly attempting to make friends at the coffee shop with other moms, the comparisons/bragging/asking/consoling quickly begins. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

"How old is Ben? Really? He doesn't look that old? That's ok - his hair will grow."

"Oh - he's rather small for his age, isn't he?"

"Has he started crawling yet? For some babies it just takes time."

"I noticed that he doesn't stand on your lap like Lula does and she is only 2 months old..."

"My JoJo is learning to read - Ben is only looking at the pictures. Maybe if you give him more colorful books he'll be more interested."

"Ben was born long before Delilah. Where are his teeth?"

I mean, wow. Does everything in life need to be a competition? Poor little Ben is minding his own business and he is already getting tagged as "average", or worse - "below average". Ugh - it hurts to say that!! But as his mother, I do observe the differences between Ben and the others we meet of similar age. In this picture, Ben is with his girlfriend Jai, also born on November 19th, just one hour later than Ben. Jai's mom and dad live around the corner and Jai's mom worked with me at GW Middle School. Anyway, this was when they were 4 months old. Jai is solidly standing on Kevin's lap, while Ben is snuggled nicely in our friend Christianne's arms. Three months later, he still shows little interest in standing. And while every baby develops at a unique pace, I can't help but be a little concerned when I see such drastic developmental differences.

On the other hand, he is a bit ahead of the curve on many things that I won't recount here because then it will seem like I'm keeping track. Well, I am keeping track. That's what moms do. And I'm jotting things down in a calendar and reading along in the book with post-it notes to flag the important milestones that I'm still anxiously waiting for. The video clip I've included is when Ben meets up with his stuffed monkey Lucius. He greets him with kisses and conversation. So as far as early socialization - Ben is doing great. He might even be - average. It really doesn't matter WHEN he does WHAT - he will stand and crawl and walk eventually. Til then, I'm happy to hold him in my arms and defend his honor when others insist on making comparisons. Carry on Benjamin!