Poor Coyote

I've been trying to avoid posting about baby milestones, but the truth is that Kathy and I are totally obsessed with them. It's pretty much all we think about or talk about. Of course, everybody says that all babies progress at their own rate, that you shouldn't worry if you're baby is "behind" on certain things, just love your babies and everything will be all right, fa-la-la-la-la. And I like the concept, I really do. But it's a little hard to follow through on that advice when you're sitting at another baby's birthday party watching seven other babies that are almost exactly the same age as your girls. You can almost see the little mental scorecards floating above the parents' heads. Okay, Bald-Girl and Red-Suspender Boy can crawl, but Nervous-Looking-Boy can't yet, but Nervous-Looking Boy can cruise pretty well, and Bald-Girl can walk but can't lift herself up yet, and Red-Suspender Boy can cruise but his confidence is lacking. Overall, I'd say No-Eyebrows-Girl is the one to beat.

And having twins presents an extra little dilemma. There have been a whole bunch of milestones lately for Riley - pulling up to standing, short-distance crawling, sitting up from a lying-down position, etc. - and with each milestone that Riley reaches, you can see Leah's frustration building up and the angry black cloud over her head growing. Not being able to do things that your twin sister can do has got to be a blow to the ol' self esteem. With each new Riley milestone, Leah finds herself at a bigger and bigger disadvantage. Those cute little tug-of-war matches for toys used to be fun to watch because they were pretty evenly matched, but now when Riley takes a toy from Leah and then gleefully crawls just out of her reach, leaving Leah bawling in frustration, it all seems a little less cute. Nowadays, when Riley reaches a new milestone, it's hard to feel good for her without at the same time feeling kinda bad for Leah.

And let me tell ya, Riley is not a gracious winner. Like sometimes she'll wave her stolen toy just outside of Leah's reach with this smug grin on her face - a grin that says "yes, I'm pretty impressive, aren't I?" It reminds me of that grin that's always on Road Runner's face as she taunts Wile E. Coyote, right before she says "meep meep" and disappears in a puff of smoke.

Or, wait. Is Road Runner a "he"?

Anyway, I'm convinced that in the end, it will be Riley's air of smugness that finally motivates Leah to start crawling and pulling up. Having grown up with a very competitive brother, I know that there are few things in life that provide better motivation than trying to get even with a sibling who just rubbed their victory in your face.

And once Leah defeats Riley, I think she'll probably set her sights on taking down No-Eyebrows-Girl. She seemed a little full of herself too.