You know, I just tell it like it is. At 14 months, people are always asking about milestones. And I just state whatever the truth is. I know my answers surprise people and they might not even always believe me. I'm sure sometimes people get annoyed by me, just like the mom on BabyCenter...

I did witness my mother bragging about DD's signing, unasked. I thought it was kind of weird, and I don't know if I ever do that in conversation. Maybe I do, I don't know.

I do know one mom on fb poked fun at my daughter because her daughter has started talking and mine can only sign (I guess I deserved it, though. I posted "Eek! ;)" on a picture where my best friends 7 month old and that girl's baby were eating Cheetos together. Pretty rude of me. My bf and I always talk about nutrition and food, but that girl doesn't know that.)

I am also guilty of the "funny-cute-slightly braggy Facebook updates", but so are all of my mama friends. All of us are always posting about how our child is sitting, walking or talking or whatever. It is exciting when that stuff happens! I'm sure our non-parent friends have our status updates blocked by now lol.

I'm pretty opinionated in real life and on Facebook and I know a few people have blocked my updates (including the Cheeto mama, a long time ago.) or unfriended me if they don't like what I say or do. Who cares? My real friends are excited with me and tend to be interested in what I'm interested in.

I've also noticed that a natural parenting group I'm a part of on there (we all had babies the same month) is full of very bright children. DD was ahead of most of them in some areas, but some of those babies are starting to talk in sentences at 14 months and DD just has signs. She is barely talking. (Starting to worry about her hearing, actually...) I have two other friends that I found out were gifted in school and they also have bright babies. I tend to talk with them the most.

In "real life", I hang out with a group of natural-minded parents, and many of them also seem to be very bright. I went on an outing the other day where I was having a normal small-talk conversation with another mama and she was quoting statistics to me about the average age of weaning worldwide <3. Awesome. I'm not 100% sure yet, but I think we may fit in pretty well with them all.

I'm never out to make anyone feel bad or inferior (though I do feel bad when I realize I've done that), but I won't apologize for who I am (and who my family is) or moderate my opinions to a large degree to please an audience.

Last edited by islandofapples; 02/03/12 08:30 AM.