Kids don't get to be kids for long enough, Ms. Orenstein wrote. Play is an essential part of any child's childhood, an indispensable tool to forming relationships and becoming socially and emotionally stable and there isn't enough of it in today's kindergartens. Drilling kids with flash cards pushes them to grow up before they are ready, robbing them of opportunities to learn necessary skills that will help them compete in our global society. Oops. I was robbing my child of his childhood. He probably wasn't "playing" nearly enough. As I read I imagined the track my bright little boy was on. He'd be the socially awkward, uncoordinated kid who never got invited to parties, acted out in strange ways and drew pitying looks from his classmates. He'd probably smell bad, too.

What had I been thinking? Let the kid grow up when he was ready. Sigh. I hadn't planned for things to be this way. I thought he'd be the rough-and-tumble little boy who roared at everything and bit the furniture as he stalked the house defending his territory. But when he showed interest in the letter "S" at twenty months on a cross-country flight, I snagged the opportunity to keep him quiet and contained. We looked for S's in the in-flight magazines calmly and intently for the rest of the flight. After that, his appetite for letters, numbers and words could not be satiated.

I had assumed I was doing a good thing, feeding his interests, giving him hugs and kisses when he learned new things and generally making learning fun and exciting. I even skimmed through a book, How to Teach Your Baby to Read by Glenn Doman and Janet Doman. The Domans assured me that starting young would make it easier for the child to pick up on new words and learn to read. The older he was, even kindergarten age, the more difficult it would be. As I watched my child, still shy of his second birthday, learn to recognize nine words in one afternoon — with less than ten minutes of effort on my part — I became a believer. The few minutes I spent each day showing him new words and then testing him on them later in the week were going to save us from a world of frustration once he was actually "old enough" to learn to read.

But when I was reminded of the power of play I decided to step back and watch for a while. Did my child even know how to play? I got out the wooden train set he had received for Christmas and spread the tracks on the floor. He spent a few minutes puttering around with them before coming to me and insisting I do it for him. Same story with the playdough. Hmm. At play groups I noticed him standing on the sidelines, unsure of what to do while other kids his age tackled each other, wrestled over balls and pulled things out of the toy fridge. Then he found a book and brought it to me to read to him. Hmm again. And finally, while playing at the park with some friends, he watched, puzzled, as two boys his age battled with sticks the size of staves. His own wand-sized stick, held loosely in his hand, remained unused. Certainly this was the lack of play that would prevent my child from forming lasting relationships, from figuring out how to build bridges, from becoming a contributing member of society. I hung my head in shame.

Still, I don't intend to stop my encouragement of his intellectual pursuits. Not only does it make him happy, it makes me really, really happy. Why? Because playing with him is, um, boring. And frustrating. He doesn't understand the rules of the games. He pushes me around indecisively whenever I let him take charge. He gets distracted. He makes messes that I have to clean up. Standing at the bottom of the slide waiting for him to come down and hovering beside him while he climbs up the tricky ladders at the playground lest he lose his teeth may be fun for him, but a mother can only take so much. We both need our alone time and, of course, we get it. But when we're together, I'd rather spend it doing something that has measurable results, something that I can look back on and say, "I taught him that." Watching him learn letters and words allows me to look back on the day and count it as a success.

And so, at my house, we blur the line between learning and play. We can spend a half-hour sitting on the couch bending chenille stems into Os or spelling out words on flash cards and be utterly delighted. To heck with building towers with oversize legos. Making Ts with them is so much more fun. Who cares about drawing, unless a W magically appears in the random scribbles? Now that is cool stuff. And so what if it's too cold to play outside? We've only read Corduroy four times. There's still plenty of fun to be had.

? "He's so cute," she says, touching my son's curls. "Still not walking?" His chubby fingers clutch mine as he inches towards the swings, wobbly as a newborn foal.

"Oh, you know.?He's getting there," I say, as if everyone walks around with a twenty-five-pound toddler death-gripping their thumbs. As if on cue, Owen drops to his hands and knees and speeds off, slap-slap-slapping across the filthy playground flooring.?

"He's a big boy," Playground Mommy says. "How old?"

"Thirteen months." ?

"Thirteen months?!" she says, eyes wide. "He's huge!"

That's true . . . except for the "thirteen months" part.?My son is actually seventeen months old, but you'll never hear it from me, at least not at the playground.? ?

Yes, I know it's nuts. As a reasonably intelligent, Birkenstock wearing, "Every child develops differently" type of gal, I always assumed I'd be Captain Awesome when it came to raising my own kid.?I pictured myself surrounded by a crew of happy, tow-headed tots, each secure in the knowledge that they were special Just The Way They Are. But all that flew out the window when faced with a gaggle of playground parents whose ten-month-olds were running laps around my older son.?

I'd round down his age down to the nearest month, shaving off a few precious developmental weeks.?"Oh," the parents would sigh, relief flooding their faces. "That makes more sense."At first I didn't think too much of it.?The babe had always been a little slow with the physical stuff, but I figured it was genetic.?His dad and I veer toward the "readerly" side of the athletic spectrum, so it made sense that he'd rather thumb through Goodnight Moon than run a 5K.?But then it started.?The looks. The tsks. The well-meaning advice from people whose charges were walking — running! — at twelve or nine or even seven months.

Within weeks I'd heard it all: Buy him sturdier shoes.?Buy him comfortable shoes.?Make him walk everywhere. (He's only crawling because you're not putting your foot down.) Don't let him watch television.?Tempt him with treats. One ancient grandmother-type recommended that I tie a scarf under his armpits and march him around the playground like a puppet.?

I've found myself considering it.

Still, my gut tells me he's fine. I've done the reading; I know that boys tend to be slower with language and that taller children take longer to walk. At seventeen months — and thirty-six-inches tall — he's as big as most three-year-olds, so it makes sense that his toddler brain would have trouble coordinating his preschool-sized parts.?But just to be safe we went ahead and had him evaluated to make sure we weren't missing any red flags. The physical therapist, a small woman with a reassuring smile, said that Owen was a little behind the curve, but physically and cognitively he was fine.?Better than fine, even.?Smart!?Social! Wonderful in all the ways that warm a neurotic parent's heart!?The best thing I could do for Owen, she said, would be to put down the parenting magazines and let him develop on his own schedule.?After all, nobody goes to college not knowing how to walk.?I know?she's right, yet all it takes is one raised eyebrow on the playground to send me spiraling.???

It started small, as most lies do. I'd round down his age down to the nearest month, shaving off a few precious developmental weeks.?"Oh," the parents would sigh, relief flooding their faces. "That makes more sense."?Gone were the furrowed brows and awkward talk of early intervention. Suddenly we could gab about normal things like nap schedules and vegetable aversion.?I was happy.?They were happy.?And my son didn't understand what I was saying so, hey, happy. ?

Of course I still have qualms.?It doesn't take an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras to know that it's a slippery slope between fudging a few facts and turning into a full-fledged Freakmother.?But some days saving face feels like the only way to keep my sanity. I know I'll have to stop when he's able to understand me, and that's fine.Until then, telling a white lie every now and then to avoid an hour-long lecture on footwear seems small in the scheme of things.?The less time I have to take to defend his (okay, our) honor, the more time we have for important things like playing chase.?Even if it's on all fours.?

Seriously.

You know how it is fellow sojourners: you long for your children the moment you see the airport sign on the highway. Suddenly nostalgic for the twang of the 5:45 alarm and epic daily corralling through teeth-brushing, face-washing, yogurt- and apple-eating, lunch-bagging and surreptitious eyelash-curling, you have inexplicably romantic thoughts about waiting for the bus or catching the subway with five million other people. You forget holding your breath when the man next to you sneezes five times in a row, and how often you wonder if you can get swine flu more than once. Or if you live outside of the city, you forget the pang of guilt you feel (the ozone, the future of the planet!) every time you turn on the air conditioner for the seemingly endless drive to school on nauseatingly curvy roads.

But these moments of waxing rhapsodic are fleeting, are they not? Mere hours later, comfortably ensconced in a room with a Heavenly Bed and a willing room-service delivery person, things change. There are movies on demand, movies you want to watch! The Wifi is perfect and you can work when you want to, at three a.m. say, without worrying about passing out the next day after morning drop-off. Did I mention you can pick up a phone, tell someone what you want to eat and then they . . . bring it to your door? A door you can answer in a long shirt and tights?

Yes, my friends. Things are good. Until the hideous red LED clock on the dark wood veneer nightstand creeps closer to what you have calculated to be bedtime at home. First you have an hour. Then twenty minutes. Five. Three. One. You pick up the phone with a heavy hand. Your mate answers, you brace yourself, and then you?re off to the races.

"Hello!"

You say this first word cheerfully, with great excitement, because you know the first rule of calling home is sounding as if you have been waiting to talk to your spouse and children since the moment you kissed them goodbye at the airport when the truth is you haven?t thought of them for hours.

"How am I?"

You say this with a little more than a soupcon of aggravation because rule number two dictates you sound as if being away is positively awful, the worse thing EVER. Sounding like you?re having fun could cause jealousy and possibly even long-lasting feelings of betrayal. And so, even though you have largely recovered from the atrocities of air travel, you share only the truly dreadful details.

"Uch, the trip was terrible. Bad food. My seat was in the back of the plane, and the flight attendant treated me like I had leprosy. They tried to give me a room ten miles from the elevator. When I told the person at the desk, he moved me to a non-smoking room that smelled like an ashtray. You know how it is."

Instead of pity, you are treated to a recounting of all of the extra work done in your absence. Adhering to rule three, you sympathize and share, from the bottom of your heart, how much you wish you were home to help. Which is more or less true, but the movie you?re watching on-demand has clicked back on after its three-minute pause, and you have to rush to silence it lest your partner think you?re luxuriating while he or she scrapes the burnt oatmeal out of the pot you left on the stove this morning.

Because you now feel guilty about the movie and yet understandably inspired by your twelve hours of solitude, you throw an offer out, forgetting the last time you did this it landed poorly.

"I?m so sorry, honey. I know it?s hard when I?m away. I?ll be back soon. When I get home, let?s pitch a tent in the backyard and have sex all night under the stars."

Which, as it did the last time you tried it, wins a sarcastic retort. Something like, "Well at the moment, all I can think about is how I?m going to empty the diaper genie before the natural gases cause a explosion and feed Claire something other than packets of almond butter and honey."

You roll your eyes but say nothing (rule number four). And then to get things back on track, you utter the words you?ve been dreading for the last few hours.

"Can I talk to the baby?"

And then it begins, the brutal exchange of barely intelligible grunts, awkward silences, and incoherent trains of thought masquerading as sentences. Ten minutes that sound more or less like this:

You: "Hi honey! How are you? Mommy misses you so much!"

Honey: "What Mommy?"

You: "I miss you!"

Honey: "What Mommy?"

You: "I miss you!"

Honey: "Daddy didn?t use the right toothpaste when he brushed my teeth this morning."

You: "Uh-huh. Well did you tell him it was the wrong toothpaste and show him where the other toothpaste is?"

Honey: Silence.

You: "Honey? Did you tell Daddy to use the other one?"

Honey: "No. I?m hungry Mama. Are you still on the airplane? Is there food on the airplane?"

You: "No I?m not on the airplane anymore. I?m in the hotel."

Honey: Silence.

You: "Honey? Are you there? I?m at the hotel."

Honey: "You?re at the hotel? Where?s that? Is that on the airplane? I lost my red bouncy ball today and Daddy couldn?t find it. Are you still on the airplane?"

You: "No honey, I?m not on the airplane. Remember when we went to Los Angeles and we went to the hotel and the man brought you the chocolate milkshake? Remember the hotel? I?m in a hotel."

Honey: "You?re in the hotel where we got the milkshake? Is that in the plane? Can I have a milkshake now or will the chocolate mess up my poopy?"

You feel as if you?d rather slit your wrists than continue this mother-child communication charade, but you must go on as everyone knows maintaining connection is the only way to keep your child from being irrevocably scarred in your absence (rule number five). You fight the urge to scream.

You, calmly: "Okay honey, give the phone back to Daddy."

Honey: "But mommy? When are you coming home from the airplane? Are you coming home tomorrow?"

You: "No, honey. I?m coming home in four days."

Honey: "Is that the day after tomorrow?"

You feel like pulling your fingernails out, but know you must not express one iota of frustration (rule number six).

You: "No, honey, but soon. Now let me speak to Daddy, okay? Mommy misses you. Sleep well. Love you."

Honey: Silence.

You: "Honey? Give the phone back to Daddy."

Honey: "But I don?t want to give the phone back to Daddy."

You: "Give the phone back to Daddy."

Honey: "Mommy, when are you coming home?"

At which point if you?re lucky, your frustrated but still adoring spouse takes the phone and saves you from throwing it to the floor and stomping all over it.

Spouse (again, if you?re lucky): "We miss you babe. I?ll find the toothpaste. I love you. We?ll be here when you call tomorrow."

Tears of gratitude well up in your eyes at this exquisite show of compassion.

"I love you too. Get some rest, okay? Don?t let them wear you out. Kiss."

You hang up and lay flat on your bed, staring at the ceiling. You reach for the remote with your right hand and thank God you?ve got twenty-four more hours before you have to do it again.