My kid's bedtime is earlier than yours, I win!

Yesterday, I was reminded of just how hostile the world of competitive mommying can be. I was sitting in the waiting room of our pediatrician’s office for my daughter’s one-year checkup, and another mom with a similarly aged child was sitting a few chairs away. Her chubby-cheeked cherub was walking this way and that with steady legs and flat feet, a definite checkmark in his baby book. Meanwhile, Molly was cruising with the help of nearby chairs and would sometimes drop to her knees to grab a fumbled toy or examine an especially colorful patch of carpet. She wasn’t confident enough to walk on her own yet, but she was this close.

This fellow mom was in great shape with a neatly done coiffure and impeccable makeup, while I sat there in faded black yoga pants and an Old Navy t-shirt with my hair hastily pulled back with a plastic claw clip and a smattering of concealer under my always-tired eyes. Naturally, I hated her.

This fresh-faced beauty was apparently a first-time mom (nothing wrong with that; until last year, I was one, too, and knew just as little about kids as I do now).  I assumed this because she wanted to chat about our kids and their respective development; second-, third-, and fourth-time moms rarely initiate these conversations. First, we stopped writing things like “Ate mashed carrots” or “Discovered the ceiling fan” in their brag books a long time ago. Second, we’re too busy using our back-of-the-head eyes (yeah, we’ve got ‘em) to assess our other children’s whereabouts while scanning the area for possible pedophiles.

But she was me three years ago, eager to discuss her little angel’s every breakthrough with any stranger who was forced to sit within earshot. I owed it to her to listen.

After some basic chit-chat about our babies’ clothes, she casually asked how old Molly was, and when I responded with “just over a year,” that’s when things took a turn. She gave me “the look” – if you’re a mom, you know it. It’s a look of pity and superiority all wrapped into one, and in a tone that mixed smugness with syrupy consolation, she said, “Oh, well don’t worry, she’ll be walking soon. Cannon started walking at 9 months, and I was shocked that he did it so early. I thought he would be well past one year, too, but he just got up one day and walked like a pro. But my cousin’s baby didn’t walk until 18 months; I guess they’re all just on different schedules.”

Now I can’t say much about her child’s strange name. We call my oldest Suttie for God’s sake. But the ruse of consoling my assumed anxiety over Molly’s pre-walker status so that she could brag about her own child’s gross motor skills was a sticking point for me. And by sticking point, I mean, I wanted to stick her with something….something sharp.

My brain immediately went into neurological spasms trying to think of an appropriate response. I wanted to say, “You see that kid over there at the activity table, the one walking on two legs like a boss, like he’s been doing it for three years straight…yeah, he’s mine.”

Or, “I was concerned about her walking, but then she started to recite Goethe, and I figured, we can’t have it all.”

Or even, “Nobody cares, bitch!” (sorry, Mom)

However, instead of these less mature (and in one case, blatantly untrue) choices, I simply gave her a knowing smile and held up two crossed fingers. And believe me, it took all of the false sense of class that I have not to hold up a different set of fingers.

But on the ride home (when I was still over-analyzing the entire encounter: see the above paragraphs for said over-analysis), it hit me. Moms shouldn’t be competing about what their kids do because the stuff we’re bragging about is lame. Your kid knows how to walk? Great. So do about 6 billion other people in the world. He said his first word at 6 months? That’s just longer that you’re gonna have to listen to him say stupid stuff. She knows how to give kisses? It’s a slippery slope from kissing to biting, my friend.

Instead, we should focus on what we, as moms, have been able to achieve – like who managed to take a shower today? Better yet who was able to go to the bathroom…alone…without tiny hands trying to help unfurl the toilet paper? Who was able to skip multiple pages of the bedtime story without her child noticing or watch a show that was purely for you – that didn’t start with “The Adventures of…” or “Playtime with…”?

My just-for-me show is Jeopardy. It doesn’t make me cool, and it sure as hell doesn’t make me feel smart, but I love it. Because when I perform the once-a-year miracle of correctly answering the Final Jeopardy clue, I feel and act like I’ve just won a Nobel Prize for something awesome, like smart-awesome, not peace or some crap like that. And it doesn’t matter that I missed every clue until the end, and not just missed them but miserably, embarrassingly missed them to the point of pretending like the answer was on the tip of my tongue (“Oh man, it’s uhhhhhhhhh…”; “Wait, I might know this one; can you pause it so I can think…………………………………….”). Because when I give the right answer for that one, penultimate clue, I look expectantly around the room for my family’s approval and see that they are all……..playing on phones. Even Molly, she’s over there palming buttons randomly on a $3 plastic princess phone from Walmart. And that’s when I know that I’ve won, that the TV was mine for a half an hour and mine alone, and that my family is depressingly addicted to electronic devices. Everything but that last part is a real victory, people.

So I call upon you, my fellow countrywomen, to put down your milestone charts and DIBELS tests and tip your hat to the woman that you raised your eyebrows at as she struggled to put a screaming two year old into a cart at Publix. What you didn’t know is that she had a coupon for BOGO wine coolers, and today, she wins.

P.S. Later that day, Molly started walking in earnest, so before I join in the noble cause of focusing more on my own achievements and not solely on those of my kids, I must say………..suck it, Cannon’s mom!