Parental Psychosis

Mood: affectionate humor
Music: none (unless you count the soft whirring of the computer fan)

My husband - bless his heart - has been bugging me relentlessly about our son's speech (or lack thereof). The little guy is only 13 months old, but DH seems to think he should be a master orator by now. ::chuckle::

I attribute this to the fact that DH and I got together when my youngest daughter -DD2-(previous marriage) was 18 months old. At the time, she was giving grandios speeches ... ok, she was just talking in sentences, but still - quite ahead of the game. So DH just assumes that DS should be at least spouting out random words. So far, though, all we have is "Mama", "Daddy", "hi", "ok", and something that sounds like DD2's name. DH is diligent in his encouragement, though, and keeps trying to get DS to say things like "sphegmometer" (which DD1 could say at almost 2 - story for another time).

Our son is my husband's first child and my third, so we are at opposite ends of the spectrum of parental psychosis. To DH, everything has the potential to trigger an all-out parental panic attack.
Him: "Should he have that"?
Me: "Have what"?
Him: "The can of cat food".
Me: "Is it open"?
Him: "No".
Me: "He must be teething - he's happy, let him be".
Him: "But what if he gets it open"?
Me: "Honey, I can't even get those things open - he's fine".
Him: "But......"

And on we go until I remind him that I've gotten two other children through this same stage, and that they're perfectly fine.

Of course, it doesn't help DH's 'condition' when DS does things like this:

I'm standing in Wal Mart, and my cell phone rings. It's DH.

Him: "Um, how close are you to being done"?
Me: "I'll be heading to the checkout soon, why"?
Him: "Well, DS woke up from his nap an hour ago and hasn't stopped screaming since".

So I head for home. I go pounding up the front steps and fling open the door, only to be greeted with......

Silence.

Me: "I thought you said he was screaming"!
Him: "He WAS - right up until he heard you pull in the driveway".

Sure enough - DS had red eyes and residual tears. And a great big grin on his face. He looked calmly up at me and held out his arms in that adorable 'pick me up' thing that tiny ones do.

That's my boy!