It's All Relative

First: The winners are....my mom, my 14 year old niece, and MommyJ. YAY!

"But when you say a backrub means only a backrub
Then you swat my hand when I try..."
Muy comica.

A month or so ago I was at a luncheon with a bunch of women. It was a casual get together at someone's home. The daughter of one of the women there, recently babysat my children. Her daughter came home and told her mom how smart she thought Bo was because he could type web addresses and navigate himself around the world wide webernets without any help.

Previously, I had told my friend about how my sister-in-law found Bo frustrated that writing "cartoonnetworkdotcom" into the address line of a webpage didn't produce the results for which he had hoped.

Over a period of about two weeks, he had asked me enough times how to spell "cartoon negwohk" as he typed it into Google's search engine that he'd memorized how to spell it. So, once I saw he wasn't asking me how to spell it anymore, I told him "all you have to do is type it up here and add 'dot com' and it will go right to the page you want." Kind of dumb of me to use the phrase "dot com", as if that meant anything to him. But I'm not the only dumb one, it took him another two weeks to realize, "Hey! Everytime you've told me how to spell cahtoon negwohk, you never tell me to type a "g" and there's totally a G in it. See, Cahhh-tooon neeeeg-g-g-g-guh-wohk!"

Well, right after my friend said, "she just thought he was so smart" I replied very seriously, but completely making fun of people who say stuff like this, "Oh, he's a genius!" A couple of people in the room who know me, laughed. I immediately wished I hadn't done it. I mean, I'm constantly thinking I'm funny when I'm not, so that part wasn't too hard for me; but I hated the moment where people who didn't know I was joking, thought I was one of those moms who thinks intelligence wasn't invented until her child was born.

Don't get me wrong, I think my kid is smart. He could count to 100, write his name, recognize letters, memorize lengthy verses, and do some pretty bright things as early as 3 years old. He can read at 4 and do simple addition. I say those things with some pride. I'm happy that the boy loves to learn and has shown a propensity toward grasping things quickly. The next 16-20 years of his life when he's in school won't be a constant struggle for him. I am grateful for that. Do I think he's smarter than your kid? Do I think he's the smartest 4 year old west of the Mississipi? No.

Because ya see...

He also tells me that he will not be learning to wipe his own butt until he is at least 10 or 11. And he's really tired of having to remind me of this every time I tell him to try wiping himself. His words, not mine.

He also can stand in the middle of a room, turn around once tripping over his own shoes laying on the floor as he turns and then wail, "I caaaaaaan't fiiiiiiiiiiind my shoes!"

We can't convince him that boogers are not an Iowa delicacy and he should mess less.

He forgets he's on his way to the bathroom. Many of our conversations end with him saying, "oh yeah, I forgot!"

Closing the door after him in subzero weather is sometimes beyond is comprehension.

Now, I'm not calling the boy out or anything. I adore him. He makes me laugh. I love being his mom and feel pride for him very regularly. But I'm not delusional in that he is loved, adored, and as pride-inducing as just about every other 4 year old in the world.

That being said.

Yesterday at the Y a little 4 year old girl who whines when she talks (I'm sorry, but if we are talking intelligence, your kid automatically loses about 12 IQ points for always talking in a whine) and who is her parent's pride and joy, introduce her parents to two little 5 year-old identical twin girls. She got their names right.

I jokingly said to her mom, "Wow, that's pretty good, even I can't keep them straight!"

Her mom straightens up, looks me square in the eye with all the conviction her little body can muster and says, "Oh, she's very smart." It was the opening line of what I'm sure was paragraphs and paragraphs of all the things that make her the smartest, whining, 4-year-old ever known to mankind. Excluding that dumbhead Einstein who couldn't even talk until he was 4.

I couldn't do it folks.

My kindness faltered (I'm sorry Mom, you did raise me better, but I am an absolute flunky of the School of Tolerating Unecessary Braggers and the School of Tolerating One-Uppers).

I couldn't indulge her. Getting lucky on identifying twins accurately isn't going to win you Nobel Prizes.

I looked away.

Suddenly I was very interested in the sleeve my genius baby Danyo was chewing on.

He's so smart.

He knows to stop chewing before he gets to his hand. He almost never chews into his hand.