Validation

Comparisons-we do it all the time. We do it with everything. It's part of our human nature-we feel the need to constantly judge what we have against what other people have.  I noticed it got worse as soon as I was a teenager-I compared how I looked and what I owned with all of my friends, secretly trying to beat them.

And then when I married my husband, I compared weddings(you see, in one year, 5 of my closest friends and I all got married within months of each other.) Every wedding was different, but I still think that mine was the best, the classiest of all the them, and the most intimate. I compared husbands, as I am so proud of mine. And then, once everyone had settled into married life, we all compared homes, and decorations. Simple stuff.

But my eyes were opened as soon as I had Clark. Every little thing he did I was desperate to know what babies did. And not even always in a competitive way, either. Most of the time, I just wanted to make sure my suffering equaled other moms suffering, and that my baby was on track. Now, none of those close friends had babies the same time as me, but several acquaintances did. And the babies are all about a month apart, though Clark ended up being the only boy, funnily enough.

Now, I love my baby so much. I think he is honestly one of the cutest babies ever. I also think he's quite smart, and fun, and developmentally on track. But to be honest, I'm not a crazy mom who thinks they should model their baby, or that their baby is a secret genius. Nor will I try to force him to learn how to walk at six months. He can go his own pace.

But this weekend was an eye-opener. We had a convention of sorts to attend all day Saturday and Sunday. As you can imagine, my husband and I were dreading it for weeks. Not the program, mind you, but the dealing with a baby without the comforts of home. We resigned ourselves to the fact that it would be complete disaster, but went through with it anyway. Were we ever wrong. Clark played on the ground during his playtime, sat on our laps when he was starting to fuss, barely had to be rocked to go to sleep, and then slept on the ground(we made a bed out of a bunch of soft blankets for him). He never once cried the whole weekend. He never even got grumpy. He was just the most perfect baby.

And as we sat there those two days, we watched the other moms we know, struggle in every way-their babies would only sleep if held, and would scream at their parents when it was playtime. The parents were stressed, exhausted and had murder in their eyes. And most of all, I'm pretty sure they only got about 2% of the entire program.

Then I actually talked to these moms, and found out that NONE of these babies were sleeping at night, that they were all terrible at napping and still had to be fed constantly. Few of them rolled, if at all, and showed no interest in playing, or seemed to care that new people were around. Meanwhile, Clark was in his element, laughing and smiling and trying to grab people's faces. He was even attempting to crawl around. I have never, ever felt so good about Clark. I immediately ran over to my husband and told him all about it. And then we spent the rest of the day praising our perfect little boy.

As my husband put it Sunday night, "I have never felt so validated as a parent. For once, I feel like we are succeeding, that we can call ourselves good parents." It's amazing how perspective can change everything. Here we were, thinking we had a pretty good baby, when in reality, we should be thankful everyday for how amazing he really is.

So my advice? Start talking to other moms(the ones who will actually tell you the truth, mind you!). You will feel so good after, and so proud of your baby. It definitely makes it easier to deal with the bad days too!