Monday, September 21, 2009

Your Son Is a Giant . . . Oh, Wait, Maybe Not

So Alex had his 18-month checkup today (8 days before he's 19 months). It's always fun to have him weighed and measured and see how he's growing. Ever since his 2-month checkup, he's always been on the tall-side wavering between 60% and 80% in height, which is cool, and we love that he's tall, despite the challenges it presents (i.e., he can reach more things and climb on more things).

So when we got there, the nurse had me undress him and then she measured him. To my surprise he measured at 35 inches tall. Well, of course I was thrilled, but it made me immediately skeptical. In the past they have been off on their measurements of him by about 1/2 inch, and if they were correct, that would mean he's grown 2 inches in 2 months. That seems a little extreme. So I decided to hold off on celebrating till I could measure him myself.

When the doctor came in to talk to me about how he's doing and to take a look at him, you could tell he was also skeptical about the measurements, and mentioned that Alex has been around 90% (not acknowledging really that according to the nurse's measurements he was around 97%).

So when we got home, I laid him down on the kitchen floor and marked the linoleum with a dry-erase market. One mark for his heel, the other for his head. Then I took a tape measure and measured it—my suspicions were confirmed. He's only 33.5 inches (or thereabouts). It still puts him in the 75% for height, which is cool, and it means he's grown an inch (according to my measurements which put him at 32.5 inches two months ago), but is more realistic and makes more sense.

So now onto celebrating—my son is tall!

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