Babies don't give you brain cells

Why is it that when you become a mother, you suddenly think you are the wisest person who ever lived?

So I'm in Target this weekend, standing shoulder to shoulder with my husband as we stare up at the massive shelving of Pampers. There's apparently a sale. We're trying to figure out exactly which ones are on sale, and where they are located. It would be nice if the little SALE! tags sticking out of the shelves actually matched up with the contents sitting upon them, but we realize this is too much to ask. We are also trying to decide how many, and which size to get, as the boy will surely grow out of size 2's by the time we finish the massive crate of diapers we already have. We stare. We grimace. We blink. We scratch our chins as we contemplate.

What to do.

But LO! We are saved. Along comes Miss I-must-talk-to-complete-strangers-and-impart-my-useless-knowledge-upon-them. She insists on getting in the middle of our debate to tell us exactly what we should do. But first, she must get a good look at the boy and assess. Then she must ask us many important questions, including "How wide are his hips?" HUH? How do you even answer that question?? How wide, as in inches? Was I supposed to measure them? Compare them to other 4 month olds? Is there a chart of hip width somewhere that I don't know about?? And anyway Lady I WASN'T EVEN TALKING TO YOU. So I kind of blink at her and say something like I don't know, they're normal hips I guess...but if you compare his weight to the weight written on the packa--

"THAT MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING".

"Excuse me?", I say with my eyebrows raised; wondering why this total stranger just (1) totally cut me off midsentence (2) in a raised voice (3) while intimating I am an idiot. And then she said something that made me want to punch her lights out.

"Is this your first?"

Translation: This must be your first child because you obviously have no clue what you are talking about or you wouldn't have uttered such a stupid thing. Silly child, I must now be condecending to you and impart all of my wonderous knowledge to you so that you will no longer flounder in the darkness.

Seriously, I wanted to hit her. After all the crap I've had to figure out to even get to the point of standing in the diaper aisle of Target, I THINK I can evenutally figure out which ones to buy. For goodness sakes lady, you only have TWO kids, it's not like you diaper kids for a living. Oh and by the way - the genius said she can tell just by looking at him that he's going to be tall like me. My husband snorted out loud at that one.


But to be fair, I have already found myself thinking that I know better than some other moms out there. Our friend has a 6 month old that won't sleep through the night and is really fat. I mean fat, not chubby...FAT. In my professional opinion, they feed her too often and pick her up if she makes the slightest noise at night. My cousin has twin boys who have bad sleeping habits, and since I am an expert, I know all the things she should be doing. After all, MY boy sleeps through the night!

Difference with me is, I keep my thoughts to myself.

Mostly.

What's the dumbest thing another mom has said to YOU?