There’s nothing quite like receiving your weekly BabyCenter update e-mail to make you feel like a complete parenting loser. I signed up for these e-mails while still pregnant and loved getting my weekly fill of what my developing baby was doing. After she was born, I still enjoyed reading what skills I could expect her to master next.

But then it happened. Cordelia’s development didn’t match up with the tidy, compact e-mails. She started to fall behind what the “experts” said she should be doing each month. I began to worry, to examine what I was doing wrong as a parent, and attempt to fix those problems.

I purchased all of the Baby Einstein and Leapfrog toys to stimulate her mentally. I forced her to partake in tummy time several times a day to build the strength she’d need to crawl. And yet she was still slow to say her first word, slow to sit up on her own, and at nine months other babies were crawling circles around her, while she sat there and cried in frustration.

The BabyCenter milestone charts said the majority of babies were starting crawling at eight months, and had mastered it by ten months old. The chart also pointed to my failures at verbal communication, as she was nowhere close to saying mama or dada at eight months. For the record, she still doesn’t say mama. (Yeah, just a little bitter about that.)

This week I received my regular e-mail, giving me tips about potty training, and of course linking to their fabulous selection of potty training supplies for sale. Holy shit, I’m supposed to start potty training? She can’t even say poop yet!

I also read the following:

Some toddlers can even make simple two-word sentences such as “No more” or “All done.” And, as a sign of your child’s growing self-awareness, she may even start referring to herself by name: “Claire go,” for example. But because pronouns can confuse toddlers, it may be months before your toddler can say “I go” or “I need …”

Apparently the verdict on why Cordy’s head is so large is now leaning towards “thick skull” and away from “lots o’ brains” since two word sentences haven’t been heard here yet. As for knowing and saying her name? Ha. She’ll come if I call “here kitty kitty”.

To make things worse, each article at BabyCenter also has a comments section, where readers can comment on their own experiences about these topics. This is where the competition begins. Imagine that one mom you know who brags that her little 14 month old genius can now type her name on the computer and her art is the beginning of a new post-post-modern style. Now multiply that mom by 10,000.

Thanks to the anonymity of the internet, many of these women continue to one-up each other in order to prove they have the most advanced kid on BabyCenter. Your kid can count to six? Well, this kid can recite pi to 10 decimal places! Your kid can put on his own shoes? Well, this kid can lace her shoelaces with a cord she braided herself in colors that match today’s outfit!

Luckily, I no longer rely on these BabyCenter milestone updates to gauge my daughter’s progress. I also have given up most of the mainstream parenting books out there. I’ve reached the point where I now understand that there is no single pattern of development, just as there is no single way to parent your child.

In fact, I often find myself falling away from the experts and looking to my friends with kids and parenting blogs more and more now. Some of the best advice I’ve received has been from other parents who are presently out in the trenches, learning as they go along.

I see child development and parenting in less rigid terms now; it’s actually a fluid process of trial and error, of synthesis and modification. And I think one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that nothing works for everyone. I’ve seen others struggling with and debating this over the past week. It seems so easy for guilt to overtake us and leave us in a funk of self-doubt. Whether the topic is sleep training, working or staying home, preschool, TV-viewing, or organic foods, anything that threatens the optimal development of our kids forces us into waves of guilt.

So here is my advice: let it go. Let go of What to Expect and Dr. Sears and BabyCenter. Let go of the milestone charts and one-up parents. Let go of the experts who haven’t been parents of toddlers since before Nixon was President. Simple, right?

Instead, listen to your heart and follow your instinct. Pay attention to that voice inside you: it isn’t your pediatrician, your mom, or the Baby Whisperer. If you are making choices that are the best for you, your child, and your family, then you are doing the right thing. Ignore those who tell you there is only one way to do something. There are lots of ways to do anything, and sometimes you will have to try several to find what works best for you.

Also, talk about the issues that do bother you. If you have a blog, get them out there in black and white. (Or whatever colors your design uses.) Ask friends for their opinions, and use the advice you find helpful and discard the rest.

As for me, I think I’m past due to unsubscribe from BabyCenter.

So I was looking at BlogHer‘s conference information yesterday, dreaming of the opportunity to go, and for the first time noticed there is a student price. Wait, I’m a student! And $52.03 is a lot more do-able than $258.97!

Oh, BlogHer, you’re making it far more difficult for me to resist your siren call. But I still must somehow justify a $350 plane ticket and $75 a night hotel stay to my husband and to our budget. The student price puts it into the realm of possibility instead of just dreaming, though,.

Oh, the temptation!

———-

Cordelia has picked up a new behavior. Now, when she falls but isn’t really hurt or I scold her for something she’s done wrong, she fakes being upset.

Today she made a move at biting my arm, but bit only my shirt. I gave her a stern “No bite!” and pulled my arm away from her. She then scrunched up her face as if to cry, put one hand up to her left eye and poked herself in the eye to produce a tear, and made half-hearted “Wa-haa. Wa-haa.” sounds, all the while peeking between her fingers for my reaction.

If you have never encountered something like this, let me tell you: it is damn hard not to burst into laughter when your child is putting on a melodramatic act like this. I fought off the smirk and just watched her act. After about 10 seconds, she realized I wasn’t buying it, and smiled at me and started babbling something happy. Whew.

———-

Thank you to those who commented on the post about my father. It was good to get it out, and I’m sure eventually I’ll talk more about him. I appreciate the advice – my relationship with him is dependent on his actions. If he starts to regress back to the way he was, I will not hesitate to break off contact, in order to protect Cordy. So thanks again – I had no idea so many people have problems with family members in their lives.

———

To end this post on a lighter note, new pictures of the little princess:

After heeding the call to help out a fellow mom, I went to Urban Mommy’s blog and read about the stress she is dealing with due to an upcoming visit from her parents.

While many new parents welcome the visit from their own parents, I can understand her hesitation and stress. I, too, had to deal with a mostly unwelcome parent when I gave birth to Cordelia.

Before Cordy was born, my father and I were not speaking to each other. We had not spoken to each other since January 2003, when my father called and spent over an hour telling me what an ungrateful and evil person I was. What could have caused this venom? Well, I decided that my mother was going to walk me down the aisle, tradition be damned. (And we weren’t having a Catholic wedding, but that’s another issue entirely.)

My parents divorced when I was a year old, and my father was a very small presence in my life. As in, the Christmas-Easter-birthday only type of presence. When I did see him, we didn’t get along at all. He was strict and talked down to me as a child, and I resented him for that. He also tried to tell me that my mom and her family were evil people, and had brainwashed me against him, when in truth my mom never said a bad thing about him until I was much older.

As a teen, I couldn’t stand his elitist, racist and misogynist attitudes. (He and his family are well-off, while I grew up not-so-well-off.) When I graduated from college, he sent me a letter telling me that I failed at college because I didn’t find a husband, and I needed to stop focusing on school and start losing some weight and working on finding a man. So it should come as no surprise that I wanted my mother to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, since she was the person who raised me and loved me and made me who I am.

My father not only boycotted my wedding, but also tried to convince other members of that family to do so as well. Luckily, the other family members saw through it, and so my uncles, aunts, and grandmother were all in attendance.

Fast forward a year and a half to September 2004. I’m now pregnant, ready to burst, and my father still isn’t talking to me. My aunt sends me an e-mail, saying that he wants to mend things and be a grandparent, but I have to be the one to make first contact. No way, I reply. He’s welcome to come crawling back and say he’s sorry, but I have nothing to apologize for. A few weeks later, we decide on a c-section because Cordy is still breech, and the date of the birth is known to all.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, then, when my father and stepmother showed up out of the blue only hours after the c-section. While I was trying to get to know this new person, they were there with gifts, asking to hold the baby and acting as if nothing had ever happened between us. I was far too tired and sore to start a fight, and so I let them get their fill of the baby. I was glad when they left an hour later. I hoped that would be the end of my dealings with them.

However, they appeared again the next day, and again the following day. Each visit was accompanied by more baby gifts that we really didn’t need. I tried to stay polite, but I admit I was baffled by their actions. Weren’t we not speaking? Wasn’t it working well for all parties involved?

A year and a half later, we’re still speaking with them. We generally see my father once or twice a month, where we discuss safe topics like Cordy’s growth and her favorite toys. I bite my lip and endure constant comments about how much she looks and acts like my father did as a child. (Um, I look like him, so therefore she looks like ME!) I also nod my head and smile when he gives us bad parenting advice, never planning to actually use said advice.

I also continue to find new and interesting excuses why we don’t need their help as babysitters. The truth is, I don’t trust my father alone around Cordelia. Many years ago, I was “kidnapped” by my father when my mom told him she wanted a divorce. It lasted a short time, and ended when she promised him anything to get him to bring me back. Even though it’s irrational, I still have this fear that, if left alone with her, he will take Cordelia away from me to punish me and my mother. I could never risk losing her.

Why do I keep putting myself through this hell? Why do I not just tell him once and for all to fuck off and be done with it? I don’t know. I guess I’m just the better person. While I have not and will probably never forgive him for past transgressions (this post really is only a small sampling of the stories I could tell), I feel like he does have some right to know his grandchild, and she should know him too. There’s little to no chance I’ll ever trust him fully, but if I don’t at least give him some chance then I’m no better than him.

Besides, while it’s stressful to deal with this, it would be even more of a pain to deal with the alternative. He knows where we live, he knows our phone number. If I did tell him off, I would live always wondering when he was going to call or show up next to make our lives miserable. Better to just meet him halfway so that everybody can sleep well at night.

The little gem I referenced in an earlier post is a small booklet I picked up at Colonial Williamsburg. I found it in one small shop, partially hidden behind a stack of children’s toys: a pamphlet titled The School of Manners OR RULES for Childrens Behavior.

It is a historical reproduction of an authentic text from the period. After only a short time of flipping through the pages, I knew I couldn’t pass up this chance.

And so for you, my readers, over the next month I would like to present you with some of the writings from this 1701 publication. You will then be able to tell your children just how good they really have it today.

Also, there is a forward that addresses the parents of these children, but I will save that for the very end, after you see the rules put forth by this author. Today we’ll start with the basic rules for life and then rules for church. They’re short and to the point – later entries will be a little more lengthy and wordy. There is even a chapter devoted to rules for boys in particular.

(Spelling and punctuation have been left as written. Except for those silly f’s that are meant to be s’s.)

Chapter I. Short and mixt Precepts.

1. FEAR GOD.
2. Honour the KING.
3. Reverence thy Parents.
4. Submit to thy Superiors.
5. Despise not thy inferiors.
6. Be courtious with thy Equals.
7. Pray daily and devoutly.
8. Converse with the Good.
9. Imitate not the wicked.
10. Hearken to Instruction.
11. Be desirous of Learning.
12. Love the School.
13. Be always cleanly.
14. Study Vertue.
15. Provoke no Body.
16. Love thy Schoolfellows.
17. Please thy Master.
18. Let not play entice thee.
19. Restrain thy Tongue.
20. Cover future Honour, which only Vertue and Wisdom can procure.

Chapter II. Of Behaviour at the Church.

1. Decently walk to thy Seat or Pew; run not, nor go wantonly.
2. Sit where thou art ordered by thy Superiors, Parents, or Masters.
3. Shift not Seats, but continue in the same place.
4. Lend thy place for the easing of any one that stands near thee.
5. Keep not too long a Seat lent thee by another, but being eased restore it.
6. Talk not in the Church, especially in the time of Prayers of Preaching.
7. Fix thine eye upon the Minister. Let it not wildly wander to gaze upon any Person or Thing.
8. Attend diligently to the Words of the Minister; pray with him when he prayeth, at least in thy Heart; and while he preacheth, listen, that thou mayest remember.
9. Be not hasty to run out of the Church when the Worship is ended, as if thou wert weary of being there.
10. Walk decently and soberly home, without hast or wantonness.

Sigh.

Yesterday at this time I was walking along the beach in Virginia, soaking up the warm sunshine, feeling the cool breeze wrap around me, and dipping my feet in the fucking cold chipper Atlantic ocean without a care in my head.

Today? Not 24 hours later, I’m back in Ohio, sitting in my windowless office on a cold and rainy day, staring at my computer as I return e-mails and phone calls from students, attempting to stay awake with only one small can of Diet Coke.

Aaron’s stage combat workshop finished at 6pm last night, which is when we started on the drive for home. We knew it was going to be a long drive, although we didn’t plan on the periods of heavy rain that we had to pass through in the mountains. Nothing like flying down a 7% grade on the side of a mountain in the pouring rain to scare the hell out of you and keep you awake.

(Oh, and I would like to thank Coca-Cola, the makers of Vault. This blessed drink is a large part of the reason we made it home without stopping to nap.)

Luckily the drive was uneventful. Thanks to my good eyesight, even the opossum we encountered in Road Kill Alley lived to see another night. We pulled into the driveway at 3:30am, and we were both asleep by 3:40am.

It really hit me this morning just how much I missed Cordelia. When I woke up, my first desire was to race downstairs to see her. I quickly got dressed and walked down the stairs. Cordy’s back was to the stairs, so I quietly crept up to her to surprise her. As I got close, she turned to look at me, showed me the crayon in her hand with a half-smile, and then turned back to her coloring book. “I think the cats missed you more than she did,” my mom said in response. (She may be right – the cats were practically climbing up us when we walked in the door last night.)

While I’m a little sad that Cordy seemed to show little interest in seeing her mother, who was away from her for several days, I am glad to be back home. I spent an hour this morning sharing my breakfast with her and just sitting quietly beside her while she colored.

I wanted to share a few more pics of the trip. These are from yesterday – I spent more time at the beach, and also visited the Virginia Aquarium. While the aquarium was largely disappointing, there were a few good exhibits, including sharks and giant sea turtles.

The highlight of my day was petting a sting ray. I had no idea that they’re just slimy puppy dogs – the rays in the tank enjoyed being stroked and touched by all of the eager hands.

(Ah hell, I just realized how awful I look in that pic. Self-portraits are never flattering, are they?)