Advice

Do I really need advice like this?

Yesterday at work I was talking to one of my friends who has a son just a year older than Cody. I was bemoaning the problems I was having getting Cody to do his homework. In a stern and rather condescending voice, my well meaning friend said,

"You need to start taking things away from him, Becky."

Well, yeah.

I didn't say anything to her, because she had good intentions, but what did she think I was doing? I mean, did she think I was just sitting around saying, "whatever you want dear" while my son was refusing to do his homework and lying to me about it? Give me a break!

But the conversation reminded me of some of the humorous, and totally useless, advice I got when Cody was a baby. Let's discuss a few of them...

When Cody was just a few weeks old, we were still in Italy. I was visiting with a friend who had two daughters, 7 months and 2 years old. During the course of the conversation, she pointed to a walker and said, "I was going to give you that walker for Cody but Jen Jen tore the seat out of it standing in it. "

I replied, "That's ok, because I wasn't planning on getting him a walker anyway."

"What???" She responded in a shocked and incredulous voice. "You're not going to put him in a walker????? How is he ever going to learn to walk if you don't put him in a walker????"

Uh, the same way babies learned to walk for thousands upon thousands of years before walkers were invented. And Cody did learn to walk at 11 months of age. Right on schedule. (After we got back to the States, I eventually did get him a walker. I found one at a resale shop for half price, but I seldom put him in it. He was probably in it 5 times before he outgrew it.)

Other things I heard were:

• He will never learn to walk if you don't put him in hard soled shoes
• If you don't put him in high top shoes, his ankles will be deformed
• You need to start potty training him (at 11 months of age). If you don't start to potty train boys as soon as they learn to walk, they'll never be potty trained.

I disregarded all that well intentioned but utterly rediculous advice and guess what? Cody learned to walk, his ankles are perfectly straight, and he uses the toilet just fine. (Seriously, how many kids do you see going off to college still in diapers?)

Sometimes it's just better to trust what feels right.