I had an inappropriate thought this morning. While I was chatting with Miles’ daycare teacher during dropoff, Miles was doing the whole clinging to my sleeve and whimpering thing. She mentioned that he “seems to be adjusting fine — he’s struggling a bit with naptime, but that’s normal; he’s pretty much just like all the other kids.”
Um… what? Pretty much like all the other kids? Don’t you mean he’s the cutest one-year-old I’ve ever seen and I consider myself the luckiest person in the world to be graced with his presence even for one hour? Don’t you mean he’s the most well-behaved, smartest, kindest child who has ever set foot in your classroom? Don’t you mean he’s so unbelievably adorable when he cries in the morning that it makes me cry when he leaves in the afternoon because I’ll be deprived of his perfect little eyelashes and smushy thigh rolls for the next 16 hours?
Taking my kid to daycare is a definite reality check. So far in his short life, he’s basically only been around me, my husband and our family and friends. All those people are extremely biased and spend a lot of time telling me that Miles is the cutest baby in the whole wide world and the smartest baby in the whole wide world and WOW he must be a genius because he knows to point to his sippy cup.
But I guess … maybe … he’s just your average kid. Of course, to me, he’ll always be the greatest kid in the world (or maybe tied with the kid I have on the way, but who knows if she’ll be cool or not). But to the world, he’s normal. How dare they!