The other day at the park, I met a mom who told me her little girl was 29 months old. It took me a while to do the math and figure out that she was almost two and a half. I don’t know what the statute of limitations is on counting babies’ ages in months, but I always thought it ended at two years.
I mean, I’m sure that the months still matter, and I will probably want to eat my words when Quinn is 25 months old. I realize that a two-and-a-quarter-year-old is very different from a two-and-a-half year old, but is it really so bad to just say it that way? And don’t we have to stop counting in months at some point?
I remember it was a little awkward as Q’s weeks turned to months. Different moms seemed to have different philosophies on that as well. I was personally relieved to just be able to round up to months when the time came (between two and three months). It also seemed like a significant milestone had been reached: Now she is old enough that we get to count in months, not weeks! Whoa! I’m hoping that the move to years will go the same way.
But then there’s the issue of how to round. I wait until Quinn is through a month before I count it, just like we all do with our years, but it seems like I encounter the other method all the time.
When you were pregnant, did you ever meet another woman who said she was just as many months along as you, but then find you were like 30 days off when you compared due dates?
I waited until I was actually THROUGH the month before I counted it, which was especially good as I crept into the 42nd week and didn’t have to tell people I was 10 months pregnant. Now that would have been fun!
Haha- this is a great post. It is hard to know how to quantify 🙂 Though I’ll admit, I’m so out of it now that I can barely keep track of how pregnant I am, let alone months of current baby. I’m lucky other moms do it so I know how old my daughter is! 😉 I’m with you, though, I think it’s okay to count in months until two-ish, at which point it seems a little silly. Of course, a lot of the time, I’ll say my daughter is just a little over one, but I waffle between that and 14 months, depending. I can never keep track of months while pregnant, though- all I got is weeks- the whole 40 weeks pregnant/10 months situation totally throws me off 🙂
Two is a tough one because a newly two year old and an almost three year old is an entirely different child. I have a four year old and a sixteen month old. I found when my oldest was two I was always quantifying where on the “twoness” scale he landed. Like “just turned two” then “almost two and a half”, moving on to “he’ll be three in a couple of months”. I could never imagine myself saying his age in months. Today I turned 396 months old. Hmm…33 doesn’t sound so bad once I put it that way.
My baby is 431 days old.