firstborn

On my wish list is a book by Dr. Kevin Leman called "The 1stborn Advantage." I have no idea if the book is any good, but he has a great sense of humor and everything else I've read of his is great, so odds are good. Anyway, today I was reminded again of what firstborns are like.

We firstborns, for some reason, feel it is our duty to correct the world of any errors they make, especially grammatical. Hubby shakes his head at me when I correct him when he says things like "Where are you at?" or "I'm going to go lay down." (I'll let you figure it out...)

With grammatical errors, I notice them almost immediately and I often can't help myself from pointing them out. Sometimes the filter in my brain works; other times it doesn't. (And even though I'm an English major, I do miss some - so all of you who noticed the mistake at the top of the back page of my Christmas letter - rest assured - I saw it, but forget to go back and correct it. And yes, it irritates me.)

But, today my firstborn son got a look at the letter and felt compelled to point out two other errors that I made. (Typical.) First, I apparently listed the blue of the go-cart as Jeff Gordon blue when in fact it was Dale Earnhardt Jr. blue (there is a difference I was told) and I wrote that my third son is six, when I'm pretty sure he only turned five on his last birthday.

I'm not sure which was more mortifying - realizing that I made three mistakes in one letter (one of which I could care less about) or realizing that firstborns can be downright annoying sometimes. (Who wants to hear that they've made a mistake?)

So, if I've ever corrected you...hopefully, the good news is that the peacemaking middle children will have enough grace to forgive me and life-of-the-party last-borns won't even care that I made a mistake in the first place. And the rest of you firstborns probably didn't even think twice about who corrected you because you felt just as mortified as I did today.

At least that's what I'm telling myself.