Everything I'm doing wrong

I have got to mellow out on the self-flaggelation about how I'm raising Babycakes.

The bottom line is she's a happy, physical baby, bright and social, and the pediatrician loves pointing his pen at her and singing her praises ("Very pretty baby!" "Very intelligent.")

But under my mother's tutelage, she really started rolling over today. She hadn't before. My mom suggested that I let her roll around on a blanket instead of putting her in her Gymini, or strapping her into her bouncy seat or swing. This good advice morphed in my head into paranoia that she would have been rolling around earlier if I'd just been paying attention or made time for her, rather than all the errands and socializing and work I try to accomplish.

Wow, this is unearthing a whole panoply of paranoias, exacerbated no doubt by my recently increased attention to work. Today my mom came with me while I met with employees and potential clients, and I really didn't think about Babycakes for a few minutes. Then I heard her cry. At 4pm sharp, a time I'd already predetermined to be my cut-off time for business matters, she started to wail. And I came running, and put her to my breast and soothed her heated brow.

What the hell am I doing, working? I'm so confused. I've limited my work to two days a week, with occasional assignments or phone calls on other days. I have a nanny for 20 hours a week to help me accomplish these things, so Babycakes is not ignored in a playpen. But Babycakes wants to be with ME. And I want to be with her!

I'm paranoid, thinking that my working and other distractions are the reasons that Babycakes hasn't rolled over, that she's become accustomed to being strapped down in various devices. And I haven't instructed the nanny not to do these things either. I didn't know! But shouldn't I have somehow intuited this? That my marvelous physical baby needed more room to roll?

Well, tomorrow I'll tell the nanny, and we'll move the swing and bouncy seat to the attic, for potential future children to enjoy. And ultimately I just have to calm the hell down.

I mean REALLY. She's a good kid with so much attention paid to her. And I've noticed in situations where I'm being neurotic and panicked, she gets upset too. She's learning to be worried by watching me. So probably the best thing I can do for Babycakes, this wee little love of my life, is relax and let it roll.