Pat on the Back

Let's face it, by the 3rd child, you are so laid back (read mentally frazzled) that you forget to do a lot of things with them. I felt like such a failure when the nurses at his 18 month or so checkup would ask me the standard questions...

"Can he kick a ball?" Yes.

"Can he dress himself?" Um, I don't really know. Maybe. But whenever I get frustrated enough with his squirming to just throw the clothes down and yell "fine, don't get dressed," he doesn't pick up the clothes and get dressed. So I guess that's a "no."

"Can he use a fork and spoon?" Well, I'm pretty sure he can. But we're more of a finger food family, so I'm not quite sure as to the extent of his fork/spoon abilities.

"Does he say 50+ words?" Wow, no. Wow. We might have a couple words (and hey, now that those tubes are in, the words are finally here).

"Does he follow simple directions?" Depends on his mood. If he's in the sandbox, nothing short of Mickey's beaming into the living room, in plain sight, would cause him to respond to a simple command.

"Can he point to his body parts?" Well, crap. I forgot to do that one. I knew I was forgetting something. No, he doesn't know any body parts because I've been so busy just trying to remember to feed this one (his older brother, Andy, eats maybe 3 times a day, never a snacker, so Paul's just lucky he's not emaciated). I'll work on that (snicker, snicker).

"Can he solve for 'x'?" Oh yes, he sure can. And not just 'x', but 'y' and 'z' too. That's what we do all day, advanced calc and early trig. That's why he doesn't know his blankety-blank body parts; we're too busy with the important stuff.

And I walk away feeling like a loser mom. And despite the fact that Kevin and I have nixed any ideas of a 4th or more child due to the fact that my womb kicked out 2 out of 3 of its inhabitants prematurely, I still make a vow that I won't have any more kids because I probably would just forget to feed them ("Whadya mean 'how much milk is he drinking?' What in tarnation is milk? I'm supposed to give them milk? He's been in our house for 6 months now...if he don't know where the milk is by now, he should just throw in the towel.").

But then tonight I got one of those confidence boosters that made me pump my fist into the air and pat myself on my back so hard I nearly tumbled over. Paul and I had visited the neighbors across the street and we were heading back home. He was ahead of me on their driveway and I called for him to "stop."

He stopped (score one there) and then I heard him say "lukfacas." And he turned his head both ways. Lukfacas. Look for cars.

Woohoo! That's an awesome piece of parenting! Yes! It's proof that I'm not totally off the mark! Why can't they ask those kind of questions at the checkups? Like "Does he play in the street?" Or "Does he drink Clorox?" Or "Do you leave knives out for him to play with?" I'd feel like such a winner with those kind of questions.

Lukfacas.