Third- and Fourth-guessing

Do you ever second-guess your parenting skills? Because I do. All the time. I'm incapable of deciding whether it was appropriate to let Nora play in the rain, or if that time-out was called for, or if it was too long, or if I should have put a heavier coat on her. And are people judging me as a mother for not putting a hat on my baby? (Answer: Almost certainly. But those people are generally the ones that I am secretly picturing taking a long stroll off a short pier.)

Here's a good example. In my last post, I talked about taking Nora to her well child check up. Things went fine. The post itself is a study in parental anxiety and doubt, but things went fine. After I posted that, something was nagging at me and I couldn't quite shake it off.

Nora is a normal normal normal kid. She is developing well and is a good size . Fiftieth percentile for height and seventy-fifth for weight- in other words, pretty average for a twenty-one month old. I was still dressing her in 18 month clothes. And not just one brand or style. We've barely bought any 24 month clothes. Why bother when these are fitting just fine?

But were these clothes fitting fine? What if some weird hang up in my own mind had me squeezing my child into jeans that were uncomfortably tight and she simply hadn't developed the language skills to say, "Excuse me, Mother, but I feel that these dungarees are a tad close in the waist. In fact, I have trouble breathing and playing at the same time after lunch most days."

Nora's crabby? It's obviously because her diapers were too tight and her mother was too self-absorbed to notice. Not eating dinner? It's due to her shirt dangerously constricting her jejunum. Pants hard to deal with during a diaper change? Pajamas amok in the morning? Socks fell off?

So I informed Eric that if we didn't want Children and Youth Services after us, we were going to have to make a trip to the outlets. To his everlasting credit, he only rolled his eyes once and barely sniggered at all. And he chased Nora around Carter's while I grabbed jeans in a size that was obviously more age-appropriate, flattering and ergonomically correct.

I felt so much better. I put those jeans on Nora this morning knowing that I am a good mother who bought those pants for all the right reasons. They were easy to pull on. They didn't strain to button. Nora talked excitedly about the flowers embroidered so fetchingly on the waistband. I set her down to run off and play, knowing that she would be comfortable and happy.

And the jeans fell off.