Under pressure

I Googled blog ideas today.  I was coming up short on what to say.  Man, there's a lot out there.  One idea I had to laugh at because it was "write something while intoxicated."  Yes, drunk blogging.  That seems to be a stellar idea.  God knows I won't regret anything I post that way.  Writing a mission statement.  Yeah, I do that every day at work with grants.  Not sure I want to do that with something that is for fun.  Another one was "how would you like to die?"  Seriously?  People write about that?  The last one I'll make fun of?  Describe why you hate people from New York or Los Angeles.  Now, that's just mean.  And Gretchen is from Los Angeles, and I happen to think she's pretty fabulous so I'm not about to do that. 

 

 

So I'm going to write about a concern I have...my kid and walking.

 

 

Last Thursday I got a phone call from her daycare.  It's always a bad thing when I see her daycare name flash on my caller ID at work because my immediate thought is "shit, what illness does she have now?"   It was the team leader for all of the infant rooms.  If you recall, Aubrey was particularly slower than the other kids her age at crawling.  And they talked about having her do First Steps to crawl.  Well, she started crawling so that was a moot point.  Now she's at the toddler phase, and she'll need to leave the infant room and transition to toddler.  Every other baby in the room has already done this, and Aubrey's the oldest one still in the infant room where she is.  She can't transition until she walks well and steady enough on her own.  And she doesn't yet at almost 14 months.  And I suck.  As a mom. 

 

 

She does have a transition date of May 7th set, but honestly, I'm not sure if she'll be ready by then.  So I was told that the only other date they would have an opening would be August.  And that seems like a really long time away.  She'll be getting bored at that point.  And I got the guilt trip of making sure we're practicing walking at home.  You know, because I have all the time in the world with the 45 minute commute home, needing to feed her, bathe her and get her to bed at a decent time.  Sure, sure, I have time. And I was reminded how Aubrey was slow to sit up, to push herself up to crawling pose, to crawl, and now to walk.  And apparently we are being judged because we do not walk Aubrey from her classroom all the way out to the car.  Well, guess what?  I have to get home.  I can't take the time every day to slowly drag her down the hallway and parking lot to the car.  Plus, it's a pretty long hike for a little girl who is already tired.  But that has me on high alert now knowing they are watching something as picky as that.  What, am I not doing this right? 

 

 

It's the thing I hate.  Ever since we brought Aubrey home it's been pressure.  Is she doing enough tummy time?  Is she still using that pacifier?  What about sitting up all the time?  Why isn't she crawling?  Why isn't she walking?  She should be drinking solely from the sippy cup, why do you feed her with the bottle? 

 

 

It's enough to make me feel like one big Mommy failure.  I try the best I can with my child.  I like to think she's doing just fine.  She's quick at learning things, she babbles, she repeats things.  She just doesn't walk.  That's it. 

 

 

But I don't want her to get behind.  I want her to stay on track with the other kids her age.  I just get frustrated every now and then because I feel like there's so much pressure placed on her.  And she's one, people! 

 

 

Okay, so I went for a ranting blog post.  But you have to admit, it's a lot better than the ones I listed, above, right? 

 

 

But if I were to give the choice about how I die?  Peacefully, in my sleep.  And no, I will not write a blog post while intoxicated.