WHY THANK YOU, YES, I COMPLETELY AGREE

You know, you get a lot of compliments as a mother.

It’s just that none of them are about yourself.

‘Oh isn’t she cute.’

‘Gee she looks engaged.’

‘She’s talking well.’

No she’s not. It’s babble with a few mamamamamas thrown in, usually in the form of a whinge.

‘Wow she’s alert.’

I find this statement somewhat odd. It’s like people are shocked to find my child is not permanently lying in her pram in a semi-comatose state.

‘Oh what beautiful eyes she has.’

Nup. Can’t even take that as a compliment because both my husband and I have blue eyes so it was a sure bet she was going to get them. 

Unless I’d been diddling with the postman…

‘My she’s busy.’

That’s not a compliment at all. That’s actually code for ‘does she ever stop?’

It goes on and on till you just accept them all with a smile and a non-committal ‘yeah she goes orright’ because you don’t want people to think you think she’s engaged, cute, alert, busy, pretty, gorgeous, delightful…blah blah blah, even though you do, because that would make you seem like the mother of all mother-wankers and then all the other mothers talk about you behind your back in mother’s group and then they start making arrangements to meet at a time they know you can’t because you’ve become the mother-wanker hate sponge.

There’s one in every group, and you’re it because you couldn’t disguise the fact that you agree with every stranger who says something nice about your child.

Oh hang on, I don’t go to mother’s group.

Perhaps that’s why…

           

Anyway, the other day I got the best compliment we’ve ever had in our 9-month relationship.

Someone told my sister-in-law that ‘Q and Naomi look so happy together’.

Isn’t that brilliant?

Buggar the looks, that’s genetics.

Yeah she's a cute kid, but Gregory and I are no supermodels so we’re really hoping she didn’t peak too early.

Her social personality can’t be credited to us too much either.

I suppose we orchestrated it, but I’d say she’s social because she spent the first few months of her life surrounded by her family because we were living with her grandparents, uncle and sister-in-law as us kids waited for our apartments to become available. 

Now she just assumes everyone she meets is there for her complete joy and satisfaction.

Ditto her energy, that’s just the kind of kid she is.

But the fact that she looks happy being with me?

I’ll take that.

Because I’m not gonna lie, (and I don’t care what the mother’s group says) I’m pretty darn happy being with her.