Oh, wow, he IS big for his age!

If I had a penny for every time I'd heard people exclaim over how large Jackson is, I would have his college savings taken care of by now.

It started when he was born. My midwife had been in doubt that Jackson would be much more than 8 and a half pounds. I insisted otherwise. A few days before birth he was projected to be 9lbs. And then when he arrived (Thank you, Mr. Stork!), it turned out that I had been carrying a watermelon of a child when he weighed in at 9lbs, 15oz.--an ounce shy of 10lbs! For those of you on the metric scale, that's 4.5kg.

He only lost 2 ounces over our time in hospital post partem, and had regained 5 ounces by 2 days later. By 2 weeks old, Jackson weighed in at 12lbs. At 2 months, he was 14lbs. When he was just about 5 months old, we found ourselves scrambling to find a larger car safety seat because he had nearly hit the maximum of 22lbs for his infant car seat. (The legal requirement in Florida for turning a child's car seat so that it faces forward instead of backward is that they child must be a year old and at least 20lbs. We had to wait more than half a year to complete the first requirement after the second was reached.)

Clothing-wise, this translated into him outgrowing 0-3 months apparel by 3 weeks old. A few weeks later, 3-6 months clothing was also too small. He managed to last until about age 7months in his 6-12 months clothing. And then things slowed down somewhat. He was in 18 months clothing until after his first birthday. He spent several months in 24 months accoutrements and then a stint in 2T. Around 20 months of age, we began gradually upsizing his wardrobe to incorporate 3T clothing, which are now the only ones to fit--and some are getting small now that he's hit his second birthday. (This is in part due to the fact that he's still in diapers, whereas it's assumed by clothing manufacturers that no room needs to be left in a 3 year old's apparel for anything more substantial than briefs.)

Jackson was also an early walker. We had never bothered to put anything other than socks on his feet until Andrew and I judged that Jackson was competent enough to try his skills outside. His first pair of shoes were Robeez for children up to 18 months. He was 10 months old. Shortly after his second birthday a few weeks ago, I took him shoe shopping (as I've done about every 2 months for over a year now), and he was sized into 10.5 shoes. He now wears the same size shoes as many 3 and 4 year old children.

Around 20 months old, we also found that (yet again) we were going to need to put Jackson into the next size higher diaper. He was then moved up to a size 6--the largest size available at the regular store for baby diapers that are not training pants. Now that he is 25 months, even those are getting small.

As you can imagine, having a larger than average child can be dramatically more expensive in the early years than a more petite child. He has not been able to wear most of his clothing into oblivion along the way, and his shoes barely show any signs of use by the time he outgrows them. Diapers are progressively fewer in number in the box with each size increase (at the same price), which means that we spend more money on diapers than others with smaller children.

And yet for all that, my son is not fat. I've always felt a little defensive about the accusation of his being fat, I suppose. The fact of the matter is that Jackson is in the 97th percentile for both height and weight (EDIT: Since I originally wrote this post, he has elevated to the 100th percentile for weight; can't get accurate height measurement myself, so that is unknown but still at least 97th percentile). This means that he is taller and heavier than 97 percent of children his age. To me, this also means that he is proportionate. A child who is 50th percentile for height and 97th percentile for weight is certainly worthy of being accused of packing on the pounds. Yet, a child who is 50th percentile for both height and weight would be proportionate. The same is true of my son. Only rather than being built like a waif, he's built more like a gladiator.

From hour 1 in the hospital, we knew he was a strong child. I had my suspicions about what he was getting up to in utero (to the point where I started wondering if my midwife hadn't missed a second child in the making), which were confirmed when he came out with excellent muscle tone and already lifting his own head. By the time he had perfected his ability to grasp objects at a few months old, he was able to inflict some serious injuries to us. His hands could really pinch hard--and he proved it every time he nursed for a while, screaming like a bansidhe if I tried to stop him from injuring me.

His perfect posture as a new sitter confirmed his amazing back strength, which was surprising since he was swaddled for nearly every sleep instance for the first 7 months. (Just TRY to imagine tightly swaddling a 23lb baby. Just try!) He was pulling himself to standing by the end of his 7th month, and a few days before he turned 10 months, he was walking unassisted. Does this sound like a butterball?

When Jackson was at an older friend's birthday party, he was 22 months old while the others were almost all over age 3. He was able to hang suspended by his arms for 15 seconds or more (and then had to be pried down to the ground) while his size-mates who were at least a year older could only manage to hang for a second or two before falling. He also loves to be placed near the top of a pole to slide down in a slow, controlled manner.

Yet for all that my son is practically an Olympian athlete for his age, his chubby baby cheeks have always seemed to give others the impression that he is fat. He never has been excessively fatty for his age. Despite that he's entirely made of thick, lean muscle, a Salvation Army worker collecting donations at the mall still had the gall to sweetly call him "Fatty". That's right. She called him Fatty, like he was some adorable little ball of flab. I was so irritated by this, though I didn't say anything to the inane woman herself. Never mind that he was not the least bit overly fleshy anywhere but the cheeks of his face; never mind that he had just been running around the mall with me, getting all sorts of exercise and climbing and jumping like a wild man at the children's play area. She was determined to judge him as being a fat older child, rather than recognizing him as the chubby cheeked baby that he really is.

I wish I could say she is the only one to misjudge him, but I know it's not true. With his height, Jackson is often judged to be older than he really is. Preschool age children believe him to be a peer of theirs, then get very confused when he speaks like a child who is just learning how to express himself. He follows them around like a happy, oblivious little puppy because he wants so badly to try to make friends. They feel uncomfortable by the disparity between his size and behaviors and often estrange him or berate him for acting so bizarrely.

Even older people who know his age are still confused by him on occasion because it is so easy to forget that he's as young as he is. Often I find him held to a higher level of judgment, intentionally or otherwise, because people expect him to behave like a 3 or 4 year old. Strangers give him looks that clearly show they think his behavior to be wildly inappropriate.

As a result, Andrew and I have developed a habit of outright mentioning his age at every opportunity. We emphasize how tall and strong he is for his age, how accomplished he is for someone so young. We're quite proud of how smart, healthy, beautiful, strong, tall, and socially knowledgeable Jackson is--and feel pained when he is misjudged by others.

By now you may be wondering why I am writing all this. Am I just venting? Am I complaining? Do I have some idea in mind that will fix this? Well, it's actually all three, to be honest. So, now that you've endured my venting and complaining, consider some of these thoughts that I've had as the mother of my mammoth-baby.

One thought I have had is that there ought to be a Big & Tall for babies and toddlers. If one brand were out there making clothing for all the kids who are above the 75th percentile in size, that company could make a lot of parents and their children some very happy customers. I can hear you now: "Why can't bigger kids just wear a large size?" The thing is, kids (like adults) come in all different shapes and sizes. Some children are long and lean. Some are squat and wide. And some have crazy beefcake arms that don't fit the sleeves of shirts that are otherwise the right size. Perhaps no specific Big & Tall line needs to come together as a result of this problem, but our societal expectations are very clearly demonstrated when it's impossible to find pants for a larger than average toddler that don't assume he's a prodigy in toilet training. Other dimensional assumptions are evident as well. By the time Jackson gets to where the waistband is too snug on his pants, he is only just fitting the legs. He's got stubby little baby legs compared to his wide hips, so no matter what stage he's achieved in a set of clothes, he looks goofy. Unless I start sewing all the clothing for my kid, he's going to be stuck in a continuous cycle of looking and feeling exceedingly awkward until he reaches adult clothing sizes.

Another reason I am writing this is because I want to make people aware of larger children. They exist. I married a giant of a man at 6'2" with some broad shoulders and hips that would make him look like Atlas if he deigned to visit the gym. While I may have lost all 50lbs of baby weight, I'm still no tiny slip of a girl at 5'8". Clearly our offspring are not likely to be described as tiny. I've known other children like Jackson, whose parents' combined features resulted in a standard-obliterating child of god-like proportions. The moms and dads of these children all show the same symptoms as Andrew and me, including the defensiveness of the darling little one's age and size.

One mom I know with a son in the 100th percentile (that's right, he's off the charts because he's so tall) and a daughter who is also above average in size, said that she often finds herself asking how old other children are so that the parents will ask the ages of her children. Both her spawn are well above average intelligence, so they are (again, like Jackson) that much more confusing for people's brains to classify. As an example: Jackson and this boy, Dane, were playing together. Dane was 2 and a half; Jackson was 19 months. Dane was frustrated by Jackson's presence and wanted to keep him from playing with certain toys. He fought with him and was angry about having to share, so he was repeatedly getting put into time out. After the third or fourth time he was sent to time out, he climbed up onto his dad's lap and whispered into his ear: "Dane needs to share with all people alike." His verbal skills were sufficient to express this idea that he knew was the truth (though he did refer to himself in the 3rd person). Yet because he really was only 2 and a half, his emotional development and self-restraint were still developing at a reasonable level for his age.

We live in a judgmental society. People naturally have a tendency to try and classify what they see. It's one of the ways in which we file away information we receive from our senses. What I ask is that rather than making a superficial judgment based on the size of a child, the world at large should consider other factors. Far more telling than height is a child's physical development. Does she have teeth? Can she sit unsupported? How skilled is she at walking? Climbing? Running? Jumping? What are her inclinations when surrounded by other children? The answers to these questions help develop a much better picture of the age of a youngster than by an assessment of the distance from head to toes.

Post Partem, Part II

Jackson and I finally met all of our requirements and were given notice to head home from the hospital.  We had had to stay an extra night because one of the doctors who examined Jackson was not going to be happy until my newborn son had pooped.  Apparently what he had done at birth was not enough; it had to be the real deal.  Our pediatrician came the next day and said that was ridiculous and that we could always just come back if he didn't have a bowel movement, and anyway, at that point there were only 2 days until his first office visit with her.

He appeased us all by defecating massively while we were still preparing to leave.  We had the nurse on duty "teach" Andrew how to change poopy diapers by example.

We soon learned that his BMs would nearly all be highly audible (often from 15 feet away, even) for the next several months--and very frequent.  Your own results may vary, of course, as every child is different.

They also will not allow a baby to leave the hospital unless it is within a carseat.  So, we buckled him into it for the first time, and the little dear fell asleep.  Awwww, how cute!  (And yes, he was fully buckled before being placed in the car, despite the status at picture time.)

I was sufficiently ambulatory though not precisely enjoying the experience of motion.  We loaded ourselves into the van and drove toward home.  As we passed the Women's Center building where I had birthed Jackson, a sudden pain struck me.  In time I became familiar with this new form of pain:  my milk had come in.

For my whole life, I'd never really been particularly well endowed.  I was not flat but "athletic" and had been reasonably content with knowing that I would never have to experience being whapped in the head with my own breasts.  I enjoyed that there were many things I could wear that allowed me to forego wearing a bra.  No more.

Somewhere in the process of leaving the hospital, my own body was swapped with Dolly Parton's.  In the middle of worrying about all the extra skin I had and how I could not pull on pants designed for someone much heavier than I was postpartum, I was strutting around the apartment checking out my new voluptuous profile.

[n.b. In time all good things (and bad things) must come to an end.  Stretch marks faded mostly.  My hips rejoined one another and allowed me to wear my pre-pregnancy jeans.  And my boobs deflated.  Two out of three ain't bad, right?]

I imagine that part of the reason my first let down was so soon and so intense was because Jackson had been nursing very well since shortly after birth.  The first few days, newborns feed on what amounts to a milkshake.  Colostrum is often described as being thick and hard to coerce out of the nipple.  Jackson was a champ.  He nursed a great deal, and at first, I was feeding him on a timing schedule.  After several days I recognized that this was wrong, that he should eat until he tells me he is done.  Nursing began to take longer, and for the next few MONTHS, I was nursing him for an hour straight EVERY OTHER HOUR.

So, how does one get anything accomplished when being enslaved as a dairy cow 12 hours a day?  Having a larger than average child was a bigger challenge than I might have thought.  Still, I had made attempts to mitigate the difficulties.  One way was having my mother-in-law stay for as long as begging would convince her.

During the first 10 days, Jackson's Nana spent most of her waking hours helping cook, wash dishes, and do the laundry.  She left the rest up to myself and Andrew, who was back to work as soon as we were home from the hospital.  Now, I love my MIL, but should I be in that situation again, I think I would try to be more explicit about my needs.

It was GREAT that Nana did the cooking.  It was NOT great that she kept cooking foods I do not eat.  Sure, I'm a picky eater, but there are foods that I do it, and many of them had been purchased well in advanced just for the postpartum period.  She spilled and charred foods all over the inside of my oven, which had been kept scrupulously clean, and removed some clean-keeping measures that I had had in place inside the oven, so that afterward it was more prone to messes.  She went out and bought new foods, cluttering my kitchen with extra containers of things we already had and various other items that would never get used--practically a crime for control freaks like Andrew and myself who have our own food buying system.  I ate fairly little food for the time that she was there.

She washed the dishes, bless her!  She cooked and cleaned up after herself; wonderful woman!  But...she only washed dishes while I was trying to nap.  The head of my bed was only about 10 feet from where she stood, clanging metal pans around a stainless steel sink.  I didn't sleep much while she was there.  She also would either leave a gigantic and precariously balanced pile of dishes in the drying rack or would put the dishes away in the wrong places, rather than asking for clarification.  It took me more than a month to get everything back in order afterward.

She did the laundry!  She folded it, too, and she refused to let me help even if I wanted to.  But she left the piles stacked all around our small living room and did not put anything away.

Having someone else run my household was making me very tense, particularly as it was not being run to my standards.  And her payment?  My dear MIL got plenty of eyefuls of about as much of her daughter in law as her own son had seen.  She bought me some postpartum clothing to help me cut down on my maternity-wear.  (GlamourMom nursing bra tanks are the best invention in clothing since underwear!)  She endured my complaints about stretch marks and concerns that I might remain hippo-sized in the hip region for all eternity.  Andrew and I were tough to please, and Nana bore it well, but eventually she left and I think we all felt some relief.  The lesson here is that postpartum doulas are wonderful; just be clear as to your expectations, and if you want things done your way without feeling guilt (self-imposed or otherwise) about being demanding, a paid doula may be a better bet than family.

Another week or so later I had finally allowed myself enough rest that the bleeding was slowed down and had turned the banana yellow color I was told to expect.  I finally braved some of the other measures provided to me by the hospital staff, such as a Sitz bath and the "epi" bottle.

The Sitz bath fit into the toilet and used gravity to spray warm water on my nethers.  It was a highly overrated experience that was overly complicated to implement and minimally beneficial.  Far better was the "epi" (episiotomy) bottle.  This little thing is still used in our home on a daily basis.  During my postpartum period, the little squeezable spray bottle helped keep me clean where my tearing had occurred and helped to flush out the area some.  Afterward, rather than tossing it in the trash, we repurposed it.  Turns out those bottles make great tools for helping bathe babies, especially for wetting and rinsing hair.  They also make entertaining noises when squeezed empty against baby bellies and are wonderful fountains for toddlers at tub time.