For the record:

1. Milestones are guidelines for the journey.  Not markers for a race.
2. Babies have distinct personalities.
3. There will never be an adequate expert substitute for bare-knuckle parenting.

So much parenting advice out there … but, none of it matters if it doesn’t apply to your baby.   Forget the formulaic advice. The best strategy? Moms and Dads — know thy baby.

To know your baby, you must observe your baby.  A key fact to remember is that babies grow via observable processes that we in the baby biz call “domains.”  The developmental domains interconnect, they are interdependent, and an infant’s proficiency in each domain strengthens quickly.  Babies have steady work.  Even in this economy.

Top 5 ways that making it through the month of February is exactly like raising my kids:

1. Lotsa pink.
2. Lotsa sugar.
3. I love it, but it sure is lotsa work.
4. Why is it over so quickly?
5. Snow days make ME giddy, too.

Both of my children were born in February, and somewhere along the way, in a spasm of enthusiastic overreach, I encouraged them to consider February THEIR month (and the world their oyster, btw).  Selectively obedient girls that they are, they did.

Motherhood.  It’s not rocket science — being a Mom is much harder to figure out.

Top 5 ways that being a Mom is exactly like being a Time Traveler:

1.   We look ahead. We believe ahead. When our children are young, we fix our vision on the future.  The pitfalls AND prizes.  We concoct a secret home recipe of faith, hope, and       chutzpah, then use it as our fuel for our carpool, or for fighting fatigue, or riding out disappointments.

2.   And we look, feel, think backward. Like the archetypal Mom, the Champion Mom, at the end of the Procter & Gamble ad (blogroll, please), we sit in the stands, eyes on our child, our hearts on the finish line.  Our memories filled with the milestone markers we saw on the journey.

3.   Einstein’s Theory of Relativity asserts that if you travel far enough into space, in a fast-enough rocket …. when you return home to Earth, you will find that you have aged less than your sister.  YES. For those of you who don’t take Einstein at his word, those who need more proof:  This controversial theory of youthification is easily proved by hearing a new mom’s speak in her new language of monosyllables.

4.   Sometimes, time stands still.  Like the pulse-racing eternity that passes between the glimmer in baby’s eye that tells you he just realized he’s going to take the first step of his young life ……. and the second step of his young life.

5.   Timelessness.  No, I’m not talking about the fact that your toddler doesn’t believe in Daylight Savings Time, and now wakes up at 4:30 instead of 5:30 in the morning.  I’m referring to the fact that in motherhood, there is no expiration date on the silent vow to get it right, right the wrongs, to include what was left out of our own childhood journeys.

When children arrive, they bring us the precious, (dare I say golden?) opportunity to grow new psychological muscle.  We find the will to cheer them across finish lines that we ourselves only heard tell of, or were afraid of.  Our best hope is that they clear the hurdles that felled us and left our knees raw.  When they do triumph, go ahead and cheer Mom.  It’s your victory, too.