Little Miss Know-It-All

I used to hate it when people gave me advice with my newborn. I mean, I appreciated the sentiment, and all, but – really – what did they know? Suddenly anyone who had ever had a child, no matter how long ago, had an opinion on how I was Doing It Wrong.

Strangers would check to make sure this was my first child, then they'd feel free to launch into a bit of advice they were therefore sure I needed from them. Perhaps it was my continual look of sleeplessness, fear, and frazzlement that they interpreted as signs that I was in need of an intervention. I'd smile, profusely and sincerely thank them for their fantastic advice, then promptly ignore it out of stubborn spite.

I stopped reading all the baby books long before Mr. C was even born. It was just too much information. I decided to ignore most of what everyone said and just do what was best for me . . . which, actually, is what most people end up saying, anyway. And guess what? My baby survived. And thrived. As such, I have concluded that I Am Awesome, and therefore all new mothers need to listen to me.

I catch myself tsk-ing over the toy hanging from a friend's carseat handle, or the type of bottle a mother at the park is using, or the pathetically unnecessary (in my opinion) use of a swanky baby food that – let's face it – is really just a glorified Cheerio. Don't these mothers know that they are Doing It Wrong? I've just spent all this time finding out how to Do It Right, so am I not the perfect person to educate them?

Then I catch myself, and am embarrassed. I wonder what is that point where you no longer are a new mother, but a seasoned veteran? I've only been at it for two years, after all, so I obviously haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what I will be going through in raising Mr. C. But I find that I approach most of that raising with a confidence I didn't have when Mr. C's age-in-months was still in the single-digits. These days, if I need advice, I may ask for it, but I'm never concerned that the giver knows any better than I do; they just have a different opinion.

It's really too bad their opinion isn't as awesome as mine.