People always ask me about Willow's Development

They want to compare how my daughter is doing to how their child is doing. While I can understand the sometimes insatiable need to see how your child is doing in comparison with mine, you have to remember that every child is a different individual.

I subscribe to Baby Center. They have this neat feature that sends you weekly updates (from conception) so you can see how your child is developing. When your baby is in utero, I think the milestones are pretty set. But once your baby is born, it's all out the window. I think they send updates until about 3 years old or so, but I'm not 100% on that.

Take height and weight. My friend Vicky's daughter Grace is constantly in the 20th (or so, I can't remember) percentile for height and weight. Willow is always in the 80's to 90's. She asked me if I thought it was normal and I said: "Well, I am 5 feet 8 inches tall and David is 6 feet tall. My mom is 5 feet 9 inches tall and my dad was 6 feet 4 inches tall. We are all tall people. You are not as tall as I am so it follows that Grace would be proportionate to you, right?" She said she had never thought about it that way and it made her feel better.

Take crawling. Willow is 8 months old and she is not crawling. Yesterday (on her 8 month birthday) she started trying to push herself around with her legs to grab something that was out of her reach. My sisters children were all crawling in the first year, with the youngest at about 5.5 months and the oldest at about 8 months. But my husband didn't walk until he was 18 months old. Now, he pilots airplanes. I guess it didn't effect his development very much.

Take talking. So many people ask about how many words their children should be saying and those whose children say more like to throw it in your face like your kid is retarded or something. I have a friend who says her baby said 5 words when he was 1 year old. At a year a baby is supposedly supposed to be able to say "mama" and "dada" and know who they are referring to. But, not all children do. Does that mean that they are not going to develop with average brain capacity? I think not.

So, when you get the urge to compare your child to another keep these things in mind:

#1: Your baby is a different person from your friend's baby.
#2: If your baby is doing something that your friend's baby isn't, don't point it out. Think about how you would feel is roles were reversed.