Now I'm wondering how much Annabel's development is affected by the fact she's almost never around other children--an hour or two in the nursery on Sunday, and occasional brief visits with our neighbor whose little girl is exactly 18 months older, and that's it.

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Now I'm wondering how much Annabel's development is affected by the fact she's almost never around other children

I didn't spend much time with other kids until I started school, and I think my development was fine.

Though you may want to take me as a cautionary tale.

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Now I'm wondering how much Annabel's development is affected by the fact she's almost never around other children--an hour or two in the nursery on Sunday, and occasional brief visits with our neighbor whose little girl is exactly 18 months older, and that's it.

#1 on Susan's To-Do List: Find new ways to make herself insane.

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I didn't spend much time with other kids until I started school, and I think my development was fine.

Says the woman who desperately tries to flee all social situations.

Though you may want to take me as a cautionary tale.

See?

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For the record, I'm not worrying about it or thinking I have to find her a playgroup any time soon. I actually meant it to reassure myself--that maybe she'd have crawled faster if she'd had more examples of crawling around her, but that she's doing fine as is.

(I mean, I know I'm worry-prone, but my every statement isn't meant to be an expression of anxiety. Sheesh. I really meant that as a, "Huh, I guess kids might develop differently when not exposed to other kids," not, "Ohmigod I'm doing it wrong.")

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but that she's doing fine as is.

This is my impression.

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I didn't spend much time with other kids until I started school, and I think my development was fine.

Says the woman who desperately tries to flee all social situations.

Only the ones that you're in, darling.

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Susan, I saw a difference between Ben (who was home, alone with me) and my nieces (who lived upstairs from us at the time) who went to daycare. Now first of all, there were two of them. So even though the younger niece was only 17 days younger than Ben, she developed socially, much earlier. That said, by pre-school/kindergarten, it was a wash, and any differences that remained could be chalked up to Ben's shyness (my dh is shy too, his sister--nieces' mother, is decidedly not, b-i-l and I are both just regular), and possible to sex/gender differences.

I think we all do that. It's like all the people who tell me that girls are so mellow. Clearly these aren't people who have watched my little girl in action.

For me, the only place that "mellow" for girls has held true, is on playdates. Ben is almost three years older, so I'd had that many years of boys coming over to play, before Julia had her first friend over to play. Typically, we'll have their friends over for about 2 hours. When it is a boy (so far this has been true for ages 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and we'll be at age nine later this month), that last 30 minutes is the longest 30 minutes of my life, even if we're talking about a spectacularly behaved little boy. It feels like someone is bound to lose an eye or get a massive head wound at any moment.

The first time Julia had a friend over, we made it for ~2 hours. After the two hours, I realized it was as if there was no extra child here. In fact, it was better. They did puzzles. They colored. They played with dolls. Even with the nicest boy over, there is an average of 4 wrestling matches in a typical two hour visit. The difference surprised me, because Julia's not a particularly sedate child.

If it weren't for peer pressure nobody would be potty trained.

Amen.

I dunno. I think eventually, sitting around with a load of your own poop in your pants has got to get old.

You'd think, but for some kids, it really doesn't.

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I was an early walker, I think. I know I was an early talker.

Being small for my age (which was the case until puberty hit, curse it) tended to make adults gawk at me recalling the events of the day when I was a little over a year old.

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As you might guess, I was a very early talker and very late walker. Mother says that I just started walking one day, without any preliminaries. She's convinced I finally needed to get somewhere and there was no one around to carry me.

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