A Mommy Story

Conversation held with another mom this weekend at a play area:

Other Mom: How old is your little girl?

Me: 21 months.

OM: Oh, our kids are the same age!

Me: (looking at her little boy) Oh! Cool.

OM: She’s just so big for her age!

Me: Uh, yeah, she is. She’s a big, healthy girl.

OM: She’s got at least a couple of inches over my son!

Me: Yep, I guess she does. We’re hoping for a basketball player.

OM: How much does she weigh?

Me: Close to 30 pounds. She’s slowed down in the past few months.

OM: WOW! My little guy is only about 24 pounds!

(silence for awhile as the kids play)

OM: When I first saw your daughter, I thought she must be two or three, but then I noticed she didn’t act like a two year old.

Me: Oh really? Yeah, well, she’s often mistaken for being older than she is.

OM: My son is right around the 50th percentile. He’s pretty much average.

Me: Huh. Well, nothing wrong with average.

(a little more silence)

OM: My daughter was like yours when she was little. She was at the top of the charts until about 9 months, and then she leveled off.

Me: Oh, OK. Cordy has been at the top of the charts so far, with no signs of slowing down.

OM: She really is big!

(OM’s husband comes in)

OM: (to husband) That little girl is the same age as our son, but look how much bigger she is!

OMH: Wow, she is big! Has she always been so big?

Me: Well, she was over 8 pounds at birth…

OM: (laughing) Our kids were both over 9 pounds when they were born!

Me: Yeah, well, clearly the steroids and bovine growth hormone are doing the job, then.

[end scene]

So there you have it. I have the largest 21 month old in Columbus. She’s big enough to make people stop and stare, and to make them keep reminding me just how large she is.

I was a little baffled by the conversation, unsure whether to be flattered or insulted. Was she trying to tell me my daughter was freakishly large next to her compact little boy?

I’ve often found myself chatting with other moms and doing the size comparison dance with them. We laugh about how different kids are, usually. This conversation just felt different, because this mom seemed to be so amazed that a child of that age could be so large. I started to wonder if I should call the circus and see if I could make any money off of my offspring.

Yes, Cordy is my Amazon warrior princess. She’s 35 inches tall, weighs close to 30 pounds, and has a cranium so large that she can already wear adult sized hats. She is already growing out of her 2T clothing and starting into 3T. (which is expensive, might I add) Her doctors place her at the tip-top of the charts. But she has the coordination of a 21 month old, meaning she crashes into everything. Head injuries are usually a daily occurrence. Thankfully, most of the time she barely notices.

Do I think she’s going to set records? No, of course not. She will eventually even out with her peers, whenever her body decides it’s time to slow down.

Do I wish she was just average? Sometimes. It would certainly put less strain on my back to carry a smaller toddler, less strain on my credit cards to buy clothing less often, and less strain on my nerves to fend off comments about her size. But she was my giant baby, and now she’s my Amazon toddler, and I love her just the way she is, even if she isn’t a dainty flower.

At least I know that if other kids ever try to bother her, she can hold her own in a fight.