Thursday, March 12, 2009

Sizing up the situation

Sophie just had her 15 month checkup. Two shots, everything good. Surprisingly, the doctor wasn't too concerned about her not walking yet. I had prepared myself for a fight that didn't happen. However, the intriguing part of the visit is that I discovered Sophie is rather small for her age. I mean, she's not petite or anything - in fact, height-wise she's right at 50%. (Although she was writhing around so violently when the nurse measured her that I've no idea how accurate that is.)

However, she's in between the 10th and 25th percentile for weight. In fact, she's a full three pounds lighter than her sister was at 15 months. Considering she comes from a long line of mammoth Mathews and Sellers children, I was kinda shocked. Of course, I started to freak out that we aren't feeding her enough or something, but the doctor said she's in the totally normal range for her height and is making a natural progression from her birth weight - she's just on the lower end of the spectrum.

Then it occurred to me that all this time my family's been making this huge deal over my nephew Cadin's gigantic size in comparison to Sophie (not without reason - Cadin is three months younger and outweighs Sophie by a good 7-8 lbs.), when in reality, it isn't so much that Cadin is huge...it's that Sophie is small. Or at least, they split the difference. This revelation will make my sister Cara very happy, because she's getting a complex about strangers/family/friends/anyone exclaiming "Whoa! What a Big Boy!" the minute they get a glimpse of Cadin. (Of course, I can relate...I'm comfortable with Sophie's size as long as she's healthy, yet if people started schreeching, "Oh my God, she's so SMALL!" at the sight of her, I'd probably start to get defensive too.)

So see, Cara? Cadin's not that big! It's just that my child is a munchkin!

No comments: