My Pipsqueak at the Portrait Studio

Because tonight I. Will. Be. Writing. My. Chorus. Permission. Slip. and other important school things I refuse to touch on weeknights, I decided to quickly blog now.

Just came back from taking the fam for a portrait session at JCP. Crowded as hell at the mall, and of course we forgot that since Bob's mom is watching Maddie during the day now, we don't keep the stroller in the back of the van anymore. SO we got there, discovered that it was time to forget about finding a close parking spot and focus on finding a parking spot, period, and realized that we were about to haul the 20 pound sack of wiggling all over the place. She's really not that heavy - kind of small, we found out later! - but damn can she move. And today she wanted to move on her own, thankyouvermuchmommyandaddy!

So we're all decked out in our finery - The girl in the white ducky dress w/ yellow and blue trim, Bob in a yellow dress shirt w/ blue tie, and me in a blue blouse & cami. (A blue blouse and cami which will be forever reserved as a work shirt, because Maddie seems to take great pleasure in pulling this particular one down to my belly button!) There are other babies there -Chloe/Zoe, the uncooperative baby, and boy twins in Phillies uniforms. All are significantly bigger than our ducky dressed-wonder.

The session goes fine - picked one where we're looking down at our cutie who's smiling, one w/ her & me, one w/ her & Bobby, and one of her by herself, to order prints of. Chloe/Zoe (we couldn't hear her name, but boy were they repeating it over in the other studio room!) was being held by her proud grandmother while 50 relatives crowded around a computer screen, and grandma talked to me. Chloe/Zoe was asleep on her shoulder, I guess tired out from all that non-cooperating for the photographer, and Grandma was carrying her around, so I didn't get the best look at her. Her Grandmother thought Maddie was about 6 months, and oh isn't she cute, is this her first portrait?

"Um, she's been twice before, and she'll be 10 months on Thursday. " Chloe/Zoe is 6 months, and is pretty much a sweet little whale of a baby, at 24 pounds. 24 pounds! Proud Grandma seemed thrilled that she'd "beat" us, weight-wise. Way back when, I think baby weight was pretty much just for bragging rights. C/Z was 10 pounds heavier - a whole baby heavier - than Maddie was at 6 months. But 6 months was her starvation period. I reminded myself that for 2 months my kid didn't grow an inch or an ounce, and that she's better and healthy now, but DAMN, what are you people feeding that girl, fried chicken? Of course I explained that Maddie's about 50 percentile for her age, but she had some growth problems due to reflux around 5 months old. Oh the pity we get. It was odd, seeing Chloe/Zoe just lay there, floppy and unresponsive as an average 6 month old, compared to my pipsqueak on the move.

The the Phillies brothers' mommy started talking to us. These guys I could have sworn were there for the 1 year birthday pictures (which you usually get done around 11 months because it takes a while to get the prints back). They're more alive and with-it (Maddie could still crawl circles around them, but I'm used to my kid being the active one), and they're tall and thick-looking to me. 11 months, I guess to Phillies mommy? Nope. 8, barely. Nobody could believe mine was the oldest baby in the room by a few months.
"She's so small! She's so petite! Is everybody in your family on the small size?" (Asks me this while standing next to wide and pear-shaped me and my 6-foot tall husband...sweet of her, huh?)

I'm not used to having the smallest ANYTHING in the room, having been a chubbster since about age 3. How did I get a small baby? Where's the genetic code at work? Could she possibly have inherited her Aunt Laura's Miss America genes instead of my Pillsbury Doughboy ones? Did that 2 month period of non-growth hurt her more than I think? Is it possible that it hurt more than her physical growth? Is she destined to always be the tiny one - is it BAD to be the tiny one? I always envied the sweet, petite girls in my class. They were so amazing to me. They were some kind of beautiful new doll that I couldn't have. Nobody envies the fat chick, even when she's 6. And being the tallest person, let alone the tallest girl, in your class SUCKS, let me tell you. Is it possible that Maddie will escape standing on the top row, middle of every class picture?

I've come to terms with my shape - doesn't mean I like to look at it, mind you, but I'm fine with it being just another part of the wonder that is ME. I can do the things I want to do (rock climbing doesn't appeal much to me anyway), and my husband loves my body. I'm good. I hope I can teach my daughter to get to this point of self-acceptance and contentment earlier than I do. She will also have the benefit of a parent who actually likes and will continually serve vegetables - something neither of her parents had. But did those horrible months of reflux actually change my kid's size that much? Would she be a hefty 24+ pounds right now if she hadn't developed the eating aversion?

Eh, 20 pounds is a nice light package to carry around the mall when you forget the stroller. I actually kind of feel for Chloe/Zoe's grandmother.