I remember the first time I noticed that Matthew was different.

We were living in San Mateo, an upscale community 20 miles south of San Francisco, in a sunny apartment that would be the first home to our beautiful firstborn son. He was about a year old and we were at Gymboree, a program where stir-crazy new mothers could connect while their babies got to tumble and play. The class was held in the basement of a neighborhood Methodist church that smelled of applesauce cake and burnt coffee. I proudly carried Matthew into the class for the first session. I loved the way he sat on my hip, his arm hooked around mine, and how his legs and arms clung to me tighter when I leaned down to put him on the red mat with the other babies. Matthew wore a preppy Lacoste shirt with a blue collar.  He was the cutest baby there.

I chatted with a woman with stylish dark bobbed hair. Tall and slim, she wore perfect blue jeans, a cute navy sweater wrapped around her neck. We asked the usual questions – who is your pediatrician? How do you like your stroller? The woman stopped mid-sentence and said, “Look at your little boy! He is fascinated with the wheels on that board!”Â  While the other babies explored the balls and hula-hoops, and rolled down padded ramps, Matthew sat on his bottom and studied a 12×12 inch board with wheels on the base. “Matthew!” I called playfully. He looked up briefly and continued to study the wheels. “How cute!” the perky mother said. “He’ll probably be an engineer someday!”

As the other babies gathered with their mothers for the highlight of the session, the unfurling of the parachute, Matthew stayed with the board, leaning over to get a good look at how the wheels were working. I picked him up and plopped him on the floor in the circle around the parachute. The moms lifted the multicolored silk parachute up in unison , filling it with air and huddled, babies in laps,underneath while it floated down on top of us. But Matthew fussed and found his way out of the colorful fort in search of the board and it’s whirling wheels. All the mothers laughed, and I joined in uneasily. He’s just a baby, I thought. This is just baby stuff. But he was the only baby who wouldn’t stay with the group.

When I recounted the day to my husband, the board incident was framed in a positive way. I told him about the attractive mother’s engineer comment and told him that Matthew was the cutest baby there.

I remember that the week following that first Gymboree session, I felt mildly anxious about the next, and that his playing with the yellow Mighty Mite vacuum cleaner, wrapping himself with the hose and “¦ inspecting the wheels, didn’t seem as endearing.

Matthew went right for the rolling board at the next Gymboree session a week later, and I didn’t fight it. I remember feeling the lump in my throat as Matthew turned the board over and spun the wheels, one by one, and then turned it over and rolled it around, bending over to watch the wheels roll on the shiny wood floor while the other mothers and babies played and chatted on the other side of the room.  There were a few sideways glances from the group, and my fantasies faded of finding one lifelong friend in the crowd to whom I could say at our kid’s high school graduation “We met when they were babies at Gymboree!”

I left a little early and took Matthew for a visit with my mom who lived across the bay, about 30 minutes away. My mother and Matthew had a special bond-her oldest daughter’s first child, and I needed a dose of her unconditional love.  I told her about our experience with the class, the sideways glances and how I felt pushed out of the loop. My mother hugged me and said “They’re just jealous because Matthew is so adorable.” We laughed about my worries with Matthew’s wheel fascination and how it might jeopardize our playgroup eligibility.

“To heck with them!” my mother declared. She reminded me that Matthew was perfect and that I was hormonal.

“You’re not the play group type anyway!”

We sat outside and chatted while Matthew played with the garden hose, the sun on our backs, my mom so happy I had come by, the warmth of her love and humor renewing my spirit.  I smiled to myself and pushed my doubts about Mathew to the back of my mind, dismissing them as first-time mom jitters. But from that day on, I never looked at Matthew the same way.

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