Competitive parenting

We hosted PEPS at our house this week. Given the fact that PEPS is a group of relative strangers trying to establish a connection via weekly meetings, my thinking was: if ever there was an event that called for tequila shots, this was it. But tequila shots are frowned upon at PEPS events, so we had crudité. Vegetable platters are the "new parent" equivalent of booze. It makes me sad inside.

As if it weren't tough enough to do this whole thing without liquor, you then spend the two hours hearing about how perfect all of the other PEPS kids are. They're sleeping through the night. They're breastfeeding properly. Their diapers smell like candy canes. They're all obviously lying, but I can't hold it against them. They're just trying to win PEPS. That's the only reason any of us are there. We're all holding out hope that we've got the best baby so we can feel better about the lack of sleep / free time / coherent thought.
Aside from our feeding issue, I used to be certain that we had the best baby. That is, until I started receiving the "Your Baby This Week" emails. In the beginning, I enjoyed them. Even if they did continuously refer to me as "mom." When they told me that my baby would start smiling, it gave me something to look forward to that week. When he did start smiling, I was thrilled. However, our baby is apparently no longer getting the memos. Last week he was supposed to start examining his hands intently. The only way Ninja notices his hands is when they spastically punch him in the face. I'm pretty sure that's not what they meant.

Next week, I'm going to tell everyone at the class that Ninja's already doing the hand jive.

I'm totally going to win PEPS next week.