I joke (sort of) that I am going to buy Lil E one of those quirky kiddie t-shirts I saw once that says, "I am not a performing monkey." And then I am going to put it in the back of his armoire and save it only for the days he goes to my mother's house. You see, my mother, as every other wonderful grandma the world over, beams with pride over her one and only grandchild who can count to fourteen and does this booty-shake dance that involves actually grabbing and lifting up one cheek of his booty. She wants everyone she encounters, friends and cashiers at the dollar store alike, to witness this surge of adorable brililance in a three-foot human being.
She's (clearly) not the only one in the family who gets her brag on about our boy (as evidenced in above paragraph). I find myself slipping pieces of our mother-son conversations into the regular back-and-forth with the other playgroup mommies. And when I do, it is like some hormonal wave tsunamis my good sense and I spill an anecdote that I immediately know has cast me off with those other women in the sea of competi-mommy. The worse part is, that comment about how Lil E has already played his first nine holes comes so darn easy, even though I try very hard not to engage parents in their own competitive talk baiting and even though I feel quite happy to snark all over whatever they say once they are out of hearing range.
And this little human and flawed foible of parenting I keep casting off and reeling in is exactly why I gasped a little and laughed a lot when I read Rebecca Tyrrel's own plunge into competi-momminess. Appalled and seemingly unable to help herself, she broke her own rules about boasting about the kids and even got a bit pushy in the process. I might be rationalizing here, but maybe it is OK to let that parent-pride swell up once in a while, even to the point of self-abhorring obnoxiousness, so long as we admit it at some point. So long as we do our very best to keep it real.
