Moe Cow

"The ultimate victory in competition is derived from the inner satisfaction of knowing that you have done your best and that you have gotten the most out of what you had to give. "-Howard Cosell

I don't consider myself an overly competitive person.  I like to be right; I like to make my point.  But when it comes to Maeve, that's a whole different story.

I have a parent's natural urge to prove that Maeve is the cleverest, most advanced, most creative kid on the block.  Or, more specifically, among my friends who have babies near the same age.  This would not be such a big deal, except that I have about 70 friends online who have babies very near Maeve's age, because we all met in a forum when we were pregnant. Needless to say, the competition is stiff.

Now, Maeve jumped the gun on walking, she started at 9 months, which was very early.  I was not anxious for her to hit that milestone at all, but still felt a little smug that she was so on top of things.  Because of dietary restrictions and just plain pickiness, she is nowhere near some of the other babies' level as far as eating table food.  Her linguistic development has been about on par with the other babies, too.

One of the mommies this week reported that her baby knows what a dog says, and can make a barking sound.  Now, I have oh-so patiently been working with Maeve on animal sounds for about six months now, and she has never once uttered a single "meow".  But this was just the spur I needed to get Maeve into the animal noise club, so I started working even harder.

Imagine my delight when she brought me her cow puppet yesterday, and mimicked my mouth when I said my usual "Mooooooo".  However, when she tries to imitate the cow, the sound she makes is "Moe".  She sounds just like the little guy on Wall-E, it's hilarious.  Needless to say, I praised her and got very excited.

I can't claim the victory on this one yet, because she does not say "Moe" when I ask her what a cow says, she merely imitates my "Mooo" after the fact.  But she's close, and I am one step closer to feeling like Maeve is the smartest baby on the proverbial block yet again.  I know, it's kind of lame.

Moe