50 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes...and 17 seconds

This weekend, Ryder, Oba-san (Grandma Yuki) and Grandma/Mimi/Gigi (my mom) went to Fort Worth for my cousin's baby shower. Ryder got to wear his new, adorable 3 MONTH Ralph Lauren layette set...and make his debut to the family! I thought Ryder would be the only baby in the room, and that he'd surely be the hot potato that everyone would want to pass around...and since he's been borderline sick with a head cold -- I had my whole schpiel (sp?) planned out should someone approach me and ask to hold him. Little did I know that every woman in the room brought her 0-5 year old...and that I'd spend the entire time thinking about how I could make Ryder into 'bubble boy' without everyone pointing and laughing. I didn't want him around all those stankin' kids! They're like walking herpes viruses!

So I'm sitting there with the little'un...and of COURSE everyone comes by, does the obligatory, "AWWW!!" and damn near EVERYONE asks, "How old is he?!" Now I'm going to pause and interject something -- nothing pissed me off more in my non-mommyhood than when I'd ask a mom how old her kid was, and she'd say, "57 months," or "22 weeks." I swore to myself that I'd never do that, as it annoys people, and it's impossible to continue on conversation afterward because the other person is standing there with a blank look doing the math in their head to determine how many real months or years your kid's age equates to. BUT in this case, I realized that I was in a room full of women who've been to this whole mommy rodeo, and I let on that my kid was 6 weeks old. You see, when you're on this side of the mommy plate-glass window, you realize that every week and month is a new adventure -- and they're so much more developed than the previous week or month when they're this age. But to the normal, well-slept, naturally kempt person...your kid is a month and a half old. Your kid still keeps you up at night, eats exclusively from some sort of nipple, cries uncontrollably, drools....and can't talk.

So I depart by saying that from this point forward, I pledge to only tell my kid's age by a roundabout number (i.e. "Ryder's a month and a half old"). If you ever catch me telling my son's age in weeks or months beyond the number 12, then you have my full permission to kick my husband in the balls. ;)