Competitive Katie is back

For those of you that don't know me, you may think "oh, how cute!". Yeah, not so much. I'm way competitive. Like Monica Gellar competitive. About everything. I MUST WIN. If only I could channel that into being competitive with myself around working out. But it's really hard for me to convince myself I'll kick my own ass, so I just focus on others.

Competitive Katie has reared her ugly head again....at daycare. There is this little girl there about a month older than Riley. Clearly, I bear no ill will toward this little girl. It's her mother that irritates me.

I overheard her mother telling the teacher one day that she appreciates the play by play the teacher gives her 'every time I call'. Everytime? How many times a day do you call and distract the teacher when she should be taking care of my kid and the 5 others in the class? And besides that, what kind of play by play does a 4 month old have? Riley's check out sheet everyday literally shows that she's awake about 1.5 - 2 hours max everyday. I'm guessing her kid is awake a little more than that, but she's definitely not doing anything play by play worthy, I'm guessing.

The one thing that really gets me is that whenever she drops her kid off, she automatically gives her to the teacher so I have to leave Riley on the playmat on the floor. Why does your kid get held all the time? Because you're uptight and weird? Because you claim she has acid reflux, even though the teacher implied to me the other day that you're out of your gourd? So now if I see her pulling into the parking lot after me, I hightail it inside to make sure Riley gets there first. (No joke, I really do this. I'm surprised I haven't face planted in the parking lot yet in my haste to get inside.)

Then yesterday, I noticed her customized bottle labels. Yes, I said CUSTOMIZED. They're red with white font, and they're oval and clearly professionally printed. Um, Riley's bottles are labeled with masking tape and a Sharpie. If Jeff's feeling crazy, he writes little messages on the tape. This is one thing I will not be competitive about. I'm not wasting my hard earned money on customized bottle labels.

So now my competitive focus is going to be on being as little like this crazy lady as possible (but still beating her to school of course). I am a firm believer that if you act all neurotic about your kid, they're bound to end up neurotic themselves. That poor kid probably spits up around her mom so much because her mom is nuts and freaks her out. I almost spit up when I'm around her.

We don't make a big deal about anything around here. If she eats, great. If she poops, great. If she has a dog hair on her paci, oh well. If she gets a bath every other day, whatever (I mean, come on. She doesn't need one everyday, she's 3 months old. She's not working up a sweat by laying around in her swing.) Could this bite us in the butt someday? Perhaps. But we'll deal with it then, I guess!