“This is normal for every child.”

“He’s exploring.  It’s a learning experience.”

“Just move everything out of his way and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.”

These are just a few of the comments I receive from other mommies when I ask about how or if their kid(s) are into everything like mine.   I know it’s normal for babies to be this way, but my mother swears that I never was.   I hate to accuse her of being a liar, but if I was really the complete opposite of my child then I was an anomaly.

Davey is exhausting, at least for me he is, which I know comes with the territory, but unfortunately my mother instilled a false sense of reality all my life when she would tell people that she never had to move things from my reach.   I can recall how she would tell family friends and cousins who had babies and were stressing about their littles being into everything.   She couldn’t fathom it because she swore that I and my brother were never into anything.

As I blogged earlier, I’ve started decorating my house for Christmas.   6 trees this year instead of 7, just because I don’t have room for one of them thanks to the influx of all of Davey’s toys.   As a matter of fact, I’m re-evaluating the lay out of the family room right now to accommodate the tree.    And I’m re-evaluating what I’m going to do to ensure that the tree remains standing and in tact at least until December 25^th.

When I’ve told people I’m putting up all of my trees, the look of shock that rolls across their faces is quite humorous.   “You’re going to wear yourself out watching Davey.”    Of course, I find myself just laughing it off because the words that continue to travel through my head are from my mother.

“I never had to move anything or worry about a Christmas tree because you and your brother NEVER touched it.   You never gave an inkling that you had a desire to touch it.”

Unfortunately, Davey doesn’t seem to have that same inkling as me and my brother.   For the most part, he’s left the trees alone (and I attribute that to the fact that I’ve put them up but don’t acknowledge them), but he still wants to grab at everything else including the little trinkets I place out on the tables.    So, I can’t help but wonder if my mother is trying to make me and the general population believes that she had everything under control or perhaps my brother and I were indeed the exceptions to the rule.

I actually decided to ask around to people who knew me and my brother as a child and the general consensus was that we never touched anything.   There was never a worry about us pulling a tree down or breaking decorations.   While we weren’t perfect children, we weren’t the types who my mother worried about bringing into someone else’s house.   So, all of this leads me to Davey and where he gets his incessant desire to touch everything…HIS FATHER!   This is obviously a character trait passed down from him.

Yesterday, as a matter of fact, Davey did something I had been bragging about him NOT doing, and of course I blamed it on my husband.   He hasn’t touched a Christmas tree, but yesterday as I’m carrying his laundry upstairs, he takes it upon himself to pull a few of my ornaments off the tree!   I’ve told everyone that he’s been a perfect angel, I guess the jokes on me and reality has officially set in.   He is indeed my husband’s child.  🙂