The plural of anecdote is data.

Well, it can be.

I both hate and love online parenting forums and discussions because they can make me feel totally horrible about myself, like a parenting super-failure, or they can make me feel normal again. The latter kind are the data of which I speak.

After a 5-7am mama-as-doorstop session, I was googling "fidgety kicking baby sleep" this morning and stumbled on a blog entry followed by a slew of comments by parents with kids like mine. Not the same age, not all girls, and definitely not all born in Switzerland. But these kids all seem to perform the same sleep gymnastics that Baby A does. I say she tries to bench-press me off the bed, they call it Kung Fu hour, and Olympic sports trials. They speak of trying to calm flailing little legs and arms that constantly wake the owner by....GASP....practically immobilizing their kids with wraps, parent legs and arms, you name it. Just like I've done.

And, just like for me, it works. About half of the time. The other half of the time, the mini-gymnast just gets pissed off and screams their head off. Yup, that sounds about right.

All of a sudden, as I'm chuckling about another parent's description of the same thing I've been though, I feel okay. I feel lighter. I even sign in and write a comment. Not only is the flailing happening to other babies, but so is the parental exhaustion and the being screamed at, loudly, when executing a move that just worked this morning. The pressure is off again. My kid is just a wiggly. Like all these other babies that parents are posting about. We've gone to doctors and read books, and we're all still no further in finding a solution to the wiggles. But boy is it nice to know there are others out there.

That transformation through mutual understanding is what makes it not only data, but very valuable data to me. When someone can describe many aspects of my kid's movement habits, even more accurately than I can, it is data. When the same 5 or 6 traits come up over and over again in these comments - fidgety, early development, sleeps in a swing, swaddling not working after about 4 months when the kids just get really good at escape, knocking binkies out of mouths, Kung Fu time, I consider that data.

Whether or not there is an explanation, there is a common experience, which is data.