Gold Star for Amy!

***Amy found my lost blog for me!***

There was a time, before God invented the printing press and the Internet, where people learned how to raise a child through word of mouth.

I imagine it sounded something like this:

Neighbor: "Little Heinrich!  He is crawling already!?"  

Mother:  *Clicking Tongue* "Of course!  Only babies who have been spat on by witches don't crawl!"  

Neighbor:  "That's true.  I once had a nephew who was spat on by a witch, and sure enough, he did not crawl..."   

Mother: *Gasp* "How terrible for your family!  What did they do?" 

Neighbor:  *Shrugging knowingly* "What else could they do?  They tied some garlic around his neck and left him in the garden next to the turnips for three days!"  

Mother: "Ah yes, that's very good.  Garlic and turnips do it every time!"  

Neighbor:  "Yes, but it must be for three full days.  Two will not work.  I tell you, my nephew was helping his father in the fields within a week!"      

These days there are actual "doctors" who write books telling mothers what they should expect from their babies at every age.

I have five of them.  Not one, not even two...five.  Granted, one was published in 1968.  

When Madeline was a newborn, I poured over them, excited to find out what she'd be doing at four months, nine months, a year!

Around four months, what the books said Madeline should be able to do, and what Madeline could actually do, stopped matching up.  That made me start to panic.  So, I did what any logical mother would do.  I put the books away and pretended they didn't exist.

Lately, I've been feeling confident about Madeline's abilities!  She's learning so much!  So, last night, I dug out the books for curiosity's sake.  Dumb. Idea.

Actual line taken from one of my baby books: (Note:  This is not an actual line from one of my baby books.)

"If your child is not performing quadratic equations by the time he is six months old, your baby may in fact be a loaf of bread.  If you suspect your baby to be a loaf of bread, get to your local bakery as soon as possible for an expert opinion.  If you don't have a local bakery, use to the following diagram."  

 Luckily, another one of my books is quick to remind its readers that every baby is different:

"Remember, this is only a guideline.  Every baby is different and develops at her own pace.  Many 'late bloomers' go on to have excellent careers pouring beer at Hooters.  With luck, someday your baby will too!"

In desperation, I turned to my baby book.  The one my mom kept and took notes in when I was a baby.  I figured in 1968 all the martinis and second-hand smoke the babies were ingesting during cocktail hour may have slowed down any developmental expectations.

Not so.

"If your baby is not crawling by eight months, it's because you have been paying too much attention to her.  If you want to avoid your child growing up to become a homosexual or a communist, I suggest you leave your baby alone in a room for long periods of time.  Once you make your baby feel that she is unloved and abandoned, she will crawl."  

(Okay, okay, so it didn't say the part about homosexuals and communists.)

While the new books make me panic that my child has some physical or mental defect, the old book makes me think that I'm simply a bad parent for spending too much time with my daughter.

Moral to the story:  Stop reading baby books, Summer.