I was at my friend R’s house Monday night. We have been friends since we met at a new mom’s group. Her twins are 6 weeks older than Sylvie. We each have different issues with our kids. Her son has been showing delayed gross motor skills. She has been complaining about how her preschool is addressing this. Complaining in a good way, in the sense of how the teacher is pointing things out and how she wants to ask for more info on how the teacher is working with her son to practice the skills because the OT and the teacher are reporting different levels of progress.

Then J came over. Her son has been getting help for speech. He will be three soon and just really started to get speech down. That’s a good thing. But once J came over, I found myself sitting back and just listening.

My kids have different issues. Both of my girls show sign of strong cognitive development. Leah is already trying to make sentences when she feels like it. Our drives in to daycare/preschool almost always have Sylvie asking about the Titanic, or how the dinosaurs died, or why did dinosaurs have eggs, or other questions du jour. I don’t worry about those issues. But I do worry about Sylvie’s self-esteem. She already beats herself up when she gets something wrong. She gets "upset tummy" when her teachers correct her at school. I worry that she will develop my depression. She already has signs of insomnia and headaches.

Leah we don’t understand yet. As she gets older, we will learn more about her. So far, she is incredibly happy-go-lucky. Not at all as serious as her sister.

I feel strange when I am in situations where I can’t offer much to the  conversation. I am there for support, but I really can’t offer my experiences or anything. I also tend to keep quiet about Sylvie or Leah’s latest accomplishments. How can I tell J that Leah is running around saying "I want Daddy" when her son, who is twice Leah’s age, just started sentences? I don’t want to make it sound like I am
bragging (but of course, we all do feel pride in our children’s accomplishments).

So, I ended up sipping my tea and listening to how much stress these two moms are under. They are both trying to make the best decisions for their kids. We all try to do that. But somehow, I felt terribly out of place.