This was the must-have baby product when I was pregnant, and along with all the other moms of newborns that I knew at the time, I bought one, despite the nagging doubt that I was wasting $40 on a blob of plastic. The buzz on the Internet swayed me – rave reviews from other moms saying their 1-6 month old babies LOVED their Bumbos. Or more usually, LOVED!!!!!! with plenty of exclamation points.

I ordered my Bumbo from the internet, and it arrived, and it was indeed a blob of plastic, a sizable, sturdy lump of plastic, but still a lump of plastic. I started to feel that I’d been duped.

I plopped my son, who was at the age where sitting up is almost a possibility, into the seat. He looked startled. Then a big grin spread across his face. He flapped his arms, kicked his legs, and grinned. From that day, every time I needed to pee, answer the phone, or do anything that needed concentration or two hands, I set him in the Bumbo and he was perfectly content for several minutes, sitting up and watching the world go by. He used it for a couple of months, until sitting up was old hat and crawling was now the new black.

Then fast forward almost three years. My son is now capable of climbing on top of the five foot high radiators, then sitting and grinning and kicking his legs, and we also have Daycare Baby (age 1) and Boyfriend’s Daughter (age 6). We just moved house, and when I was packing, I pulled out the Bumbo from the back of the closet, and all three kids crowded round. “What is it? Is it a potty?” They asked. “It’s a baby seat”, I said. “I want to sit in it!” They all said. Actually Daycare Baby said “aa? aa? aaaaaaaa!!” but that seemed to be what she meant.

It’s a baby seat, guys. But they all had a go. Daycare Baby tried to get in backwards, which she thought was very funny. My son sat in it and peed, which they all thought was hilarious. The Bumbo had a wash. Then Boyfriend’s Daughter had a go. The Bumbo got stuck on her bottom, so she crawled around the house like that. It kept them all entertained for a good thirty minutes. Never mind that it’s a baby seat.

The Bumbo Baby Seat is a very useful lump of plastic, perfect for babies aged 1-6 months. And 1-6 years too.

All this coverage of the Olympics lately has got me thinking about how parents handle the delicate balance of teaching our children how to be competitive. I’m not talking about the massively competitive spirit that is needed in order to reach Olympic status, but instead the everyday competition that we encounter every day as parents of young children.

The first time I really realized how much competition is involved in parenting was when I was sitting in a Gymboree class with my daughter. She was so young that she wasn’t even sitting up on her own yet, just like every other baby in the class. In walks another mom who regularly attended the class. She plops her daughter on the mats and her daughter sat up on her own. The rest of us stared in amazement, congratulated the mom on the baby’s amazing achievement, and then went on with the class.

Here is the thing: I’m pretty sure that every single one of us went home that day and tried to practice sitting up with our babies because the next week there were a few more babies with this amazing new talent, and every one of the moms were beaming as though their children had just graduated valedictorian from Harvard.

I know all babies develop at their own rate, so there is no telling if all the babies who could suddenly sit up on their own were able to do so just because it was their time, or if it was because their moms had worked with them on it. The point of the matter is this: Some of the fiercest competitions happen far from the Olympics. They happen in the playgrounds, at play areas, and at playgroups. Any time you get more than one mom in a room you might as well get the podium and medals ready because there’s going to be a competition.

I try not to compete with other parents with regards to which baby is talking and which toddler is potty training, but it’s tough. I think as parents we innately want to put our kids up on a pedestal, so it’s an urge that we have to keep reigned in lest we appear obnoxious.

On the other hand, I would like to go on record as promising that if either of my kids someday goes on to an Olympic competition I’ll be right there in the stands, screaming “That’s my baby!” as loud as humanly possible.