Bounce House

There is an excellent episode of Blue, is there any other type, called Baby Race. This is exactly what it feels like to be a parent. Always comparing one child to another and constantly feeling like you have failed your child. Our boys are in speech therapy because we believe they are speech delayed. I admit to having no idea if they are or not.

Here is the thing. Once babies that are born premature reach the age of two they stop doing adjusted ages. So at 23 months they are measured as 20 month olds and at 24 months they are compared to other 24 month olds. Suddenly they are expected to age and mature four months in one. It is an extraordinary feat these premature babies are expected to perform.

Our boys are currently 27 months old or 24 months if we were still doing the adjusting but we’re not so they are 27 months old. We have a friend whose daughter is 29 months old and is now speaking in complete sentences. If we were adjusting our boys age, which we are not, then they would be five months behind her, but since we are completely not adjusting their age anymore they are two months behind.

In two months will they be speaking in complete sentences? They are starting to put two words together more and more often. Today they braved the bounce house for the first time and the entire time they would raise their arms in the air and yell, “Bounce house,” before jumping up and landing on their butts in the bounce house.

It was a fun moment and I cheered them on by raising my arms in the air and yelling, “Bounce house,” soon after they did. They loved bouncing in the bounce house and then braved the larger more maze like bounce house filled with some of the slightly older kids. The boys got knocked around a good bit but so did a few of the other kids. They also saw a kid they went to Busch Gardens with earlier in the year getting picked on a bit and tried to help him out.

I like to think my kids are good smart boys, and they probably are. The shortcoming of parents is we keep comparing our children to other parent’s children and we are always dismayed to discover our kids are behind all the other kids. Every parent discovers this meaning that all kids are behind all the other kids in the entire world of their age. It is a strange paradox that exists in the parenting world, and then your kid yells, “Bounce house,” and they are the sweetest, cutest, smartest little munchkin in the world.