Do you know one of *those* Mums? I think we all know at least one of them. You know who I mean don't you? The Mum who makes everything seem like a competition?
I knew one of these Mums. Lets call her Dawn.
It started off when Dawn found out she was pregnant and she kept asking during her pregnancy when I would have a baby. Looking back it was almost as if she was trying to get someone to have a baby so she could race them to the delivery suite!
When I did become pregnant with Top Ender she was a great friend and told me lots of little things that you don't find out in the pregnancy books, but after a few months the competition started. There were comments about how her ankles had been so much more swollen when she was pregnant, or how she had so much more energy when she was pregnant, or how she hadn't put on a lb whilst she was pregnant.
Dawn compared our labours, recovery times, number of stitches, time spent in hospital (Dawn's baby was born about a month early and so they had to stay in for a week) and just about anything else she could.
As the children got older the competition started to get more heated and I was afraid that it was all in my head and really Dawn was just a nice normal person and I was the one who was making it a competition.
It wasn't. Other people noticed and passed comment.
It all ended in tears however. Top Ender has had a large vocabulary and has never been afraid to use it, and often would in front of Dawn and Dawn's baby. I could always see Dawn start to tense up when ever Top Ender spoke especially as Dawn's baby didn't speak clearly.
We drifted apart and only saw each other occasionally and then I became pregnant with Baby Boy and the competition started again with her trying to become pregnant. She let it slip one day to a mutual friend she was only trying for a baby because I was pregnant and she didn't want me to have one over on her. There was me thinking that I was having another Baby because we wanted to add to our family, but apparently it was part of the competition!
I managed to cut all ties with Dawn, but now I am always wary when ever someone asks if Baby Boy or Top Ender is doing x,y,z that they are trying to start a competition too.
