i've got issues
I have been mulling over a post about how overwhelmed I am with balancing my job and freelance design work and taking care of Henry lately and how I am falling short on the work responsibilities but I just don’t have it in me to work through it all. Instead I keep thinking about the play date that Henry and I had this morning with a friend and her son who is exactly the same age as Henry.
I like this friend and her son very much. We chat and drink diet coke (a guilty pleasure I tend to indulge only at her house) and the boys play together great. The only problem is that after we get together I spend a day or so feeling weird. We mostly talk about the kids and our husbands and we tend to be on the same page wrt most toddler behavior issues. The problem is that our kids are at really different stages developmentally and I feel like every thing I say about what Henry is doing lately comes off as a comparison. I hear “oh, wow” followed by a pause way too often for my comfort in these conversations. Henry has a lot more words and has been running around for a long time while her son has been super slow to walk and is very cautious and timid about almost everything. That is starting to change and his doctors seem to think he’s fine. (His dad’s also an overachiever doctor and freaked out about almost everything related to his development but that’s another story.) I find myself thinking about what I am going to say much harder than I want to and downplaying things Henry does that I think are totally amazing. I even tend to bring up things he isn’t so great at in an attempt to build up her son and I feel so lame for it. On the flip side, her son is a giant compared to H, which is my area of concern so I end up feeling as bad about my own silent comparisons as I do about her not so silent ones.
Henry is amazing and great and so is her kid (and every other kid I know) and I just want to hang out with them and not think about how different they are. I fear that this is only the beginning of the comparisons and I am sure that my issues are way more about me than they are about him. I suppose that’s the opportunity we are given as parents- work on our own issues and then maybe our kids won’t have to.
I like this friend and her son very much. We chat and drink diet coke (a guilty pleasure I tend to indulge only at her house) and the boys play together great. The only problem is that after we get together I spend a day or so feeling weird. We mostly talk about the kids and our husbands and we tend to be on the same page wrt most toddler behavior issues. The problem is that our kids are at really different stages developmentally and I feel like every thing I say about what Henry is doing lately comes off as a comparison. I hear “oh, wow” followed by a pause way too often for my comfort in these conversations. Henry has a lot more words and has been running around for a long time while her son has been super slow to walk and is very cautious and timid about almost everything. That is starting to change and his doctors seem to think he’s fine. (His dad’s also an overachiever doctor and freaked out about almost everything related to his development but that’s another story.) I find myself thinking about what I am going to say much harder than I want to and downplaying things Henry does that I think are totally amazing. I even tend to bring up things he isn’t so great at in an attempt to build up her son and I feel so lame for it. On the flip side, her son is a giant compared to H, which is my area of concern so I end up feeling as bad about my own silent comparisons as I do about her not so silent ones.
Henry is amazing and great and so is her kid (and every other kid I know) and I just want to hang out with them and not think about how different they are. I fear that this is only the beginning of the comparisons and I am sure that my issues are way more about me than they are about him. I suppose that’s the opportunity we are given as parents- work on our own issues and then maybe our kids won’t have to.
posted by mama without instructions at 7:55 PM
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