Competition

I never considered myself a very competitive person. I wasn't into sports and I didn't really care about winning. Except maybe at life. It really hit me when I was getting ready to get married and was posting on The Knot chat board. A commonly asked question was "how long have you and your fiance been together?" I was always proud to tell them that when we were married we had been together 6 1/2 years! Oh wasn't I special? Did that mean that we were more in love? Or just that we had weathered the tests of time better than many high school sweethearts. It felt great to be the first one of my friends to get married. I still judge every wedding we go to against ours.

We were also one of the first to buy (and sell) a house and move away from our home town. Then we started thinking about having a baby. We had a hard time conceiving and after a miscarriage we found out we were pregnant in June of 2008. I was so excited and some part of me felt special because again we were the first of our friends. Then Jeff went to Virginia to do some recruiting at his alma mater. His best friend met him there with his new girlfriends and guess what? They were pregnant and due a couple of days before us. What is going on? That isn't the way you are supposed to do it? Well they did have a boy and they had him at the end of January and we had Jason February 12th.

Now the competition is between babies. Jason had to go for shots last week and as we were getting ready to go a Grandmother, Mom and baby walked in with a four month old girl. She asked how big Jason was. When I answered 16 pounds she said that the little girl was even bigger than Jason is. At this point I feel a little riled. Yes, I know my baby is a shrimp, but he is my shrimp and is developing just fine. It could have been linked to the fact that the Doctor (quack) said he was concerned about him not gaining lots of weight, but he doesn't see many babies and those that he does are formula fed. Jeff convinced me to calm down and not worry too much about it because Jason did double his birth weight by 6 months and is on the way to tripling it in a year.

Then I see all these babies younger than Jason getting teeth and working on crawling and meeting lots of mile stones before Jason does. I worry that he is falling behind. Even though all the books and experts tell you over and over again that each baby is an individual and meets the mile stones at his own time. I worry because that is what mothers do.

So when did I become so competitive? Why is it that we worry about what other people do? Are we all just trying to keep up with the Jones'? Or is it just me and my personal issues?

And just so that you don't miss out on the cuteness I have included some photos from our 6 month photo session.