Zac had his one year review yesterday, even though he's only 10 months old. (No me neither.) Anyway he decided to behave for the somewhat over enthusiastic, happy clappy but likeable Nikki the health visitor/worker/whatever. I got the impression it was more a case of not finding out if Zac was progressing well but if we were making a pigs ear of being parents.
Zac was weighed and measured (that was a first! No one seems to measure babies anymore, or maybe it's just ours they don't bother with?) and he was 'average' except for his height which was above average, which we had guessed long ago. Then happy clappy Nikki informed us Zac will be average weight "as you two are average." Huh? How does that work? What if he decides he only wants to eat Hob-Nobs dipped in lard forever more like those stories that always crop up in the tabloids at least once a year like '7 year old eats only chips!' 'Teen only eaten jam sandwiches for the past 10 years!!' you know the kind of crap. No, Mystic Nik could instantly tell Zac will be average weight because his parents are. Come to think of it how did she know we were average weight?
Anyway, she asked if we had any concerns (I presume she meant Zac and not the current events in Syria) and we asked if it was normal that Zac had become, to put it politely, a 'little shit' since learning to walk (I didn't actually call him a little shit to happy clappy Nikki for fear of losing valuable parenting points) and she said it was perfectly normal.
Now don't get me wrong I love my son dearly but since learning to walk he has changed. I swear he has made a pact with the devil to be able cause the ultimate mischief in exchange for being able to walk early. There was a time not long ago when Zac would happily have his nappy changed or he happily let you dress him. Now it's like wrestling with an anaconda whilst he screams like a couple of foxes simultaneously shagging and being murdered. He just won't lie still and we now have to change his nappy whilst he stands up, which ain't easy I can tell you! But apparently this along with constantly pulling out the contents of the kitchen bin, throwing shoes off the shoe rack, ripping pages from books and eating them, in fact just eating paper in general, standing in the toy box to reach the radio/tv is perfectly normal once your sprog starts becoming mobile and independent. Thankfully happy clappy Nikki was able to offer some invaluable advice - "just ride it out" In fact she was so impressed with her own advice she said it twice just to hammer it home "just ride it out... Just ride it out" whilst making a gesture with her hands as though she were smoothing out a table cloth. To be honest I would rather she had just said "You're fucked! Welcome to parenthood!" whilst laughing manically before disappearing in a puff of green smoke. To be fair she did hint at it by saying "they call it the terrible twos but it starts waaaaaaaaay before that" Thanks.
On the plus side it was good to hear its normal and not because we are crap at being parents, which is highly likely as the midwives forgot to give us the instructional manual for Zac in our haste to leave the hospital 10 months ago but I did think they would pop it in the post once they realised they still had it but we're still waiting for it to drop through the letter box. (If anyone does have a spare copy of the 'son' edition of the baby instruction manual we would be most grateful if you could pass it on as I can't seem to find one on eBay or Gumtree, ta) The only part of the review which brought a puzzled look to happy clappy Nikki's otherwise smiley face was the answer to a question which has also concerned the missus for the past couple of months, that question being "does he clap" and the answer being a resounding "no!"
Zac has never clapped and to my knowledge has never even attempted too. The missus has constantly told me he should be clapping by now but why? Who decrees when you should start clapping? The one thing I have learnt about being a new parent is that facts and figures and goals are constantly thrust down your throat by health workers, who I might add spend half their time contradicting each other, in order to assess how well your little one is progressing. The only trouble is new parents (and to a large extent health workers) forget the meaning of the term 'average.' It does not mean every single baby should be doing certain things by certain a certain age, it just means its likely to happen in that time frame. By the very definition of the word average some babies will reach these goals way before, some way after. Zac had been lucky enough to start walking early, where as babies younger than him can already clap. Some babies can start stacking cups by ten months, Zac just prefers knocking down any stacking tower he spies. He will happily put smaller stacking cups in side larger ones but he will not even attempt to stack them. As far as I'm concerned Zac is just too cool to clap. He will in his own time but at the moment he just hasn't found anything worth clapping about. Likewise with stacking. He just stares at me with a look of indifference as I build a tower and is probably thinking 'why should I waste my time stacking cups when dad seems to have more fun building towers larger than the last one?' Just as with us adults, all through our lives, we all learn things at our own pace and at different stages of our lives whether it be learning to drive, learning how to play a musical instrument, learning a new language, learning to swim, etc. Sadly too much pressure is placed upon new parents to make them feel their little one is somehow 'inadequate' if they do not reach a certain target at a set time. I'm sure once you have your second or third child you know the score and are more relaxed at just let things happen at their own pace, but when you're a new parent you feel you have to reach these targets or you are a bad parent or a failure. Fortunately none of that really bothers me, I can see how happy Zac is, how healthy he is, and love how he's now testing us with his new found cheeky ways. It's just hard trying to convince the missus to think the same way.
Don't get me wrong, I know these targets and goals are there for a reason and to get some idea of how your baby is progressing and developing and but its only an average, a rough time scale, they are not written in stone and if your little one is not currently achieving what he/she is supposed to at that the age the 'experts' (half of whom probably don't even have children) have decreed then DON'T WORRY it will happen in sooner or later.
In the words of happy clappy Nikki "just ride it out... just ride it out."
No comments:
Post a Comment