Our Growing Boy

I got a message today from my friend Heather with adorable pictures of my sweet godson and the message that he's officially in 0-3 month clothes and moved up to size 1 diapers.  I smiled, only because I know those are the first big milestones in a very long line of growth milestones.  Ironically, this week, my first baby hit a milestone of his own--he's officially taller than me.  

It was confirmed at the doctor's office, which he has perpetually accused of measuring him short, so it pretty much has to be true.  I was still doubtful when he told me, but we did back-to-back in sock feet and Craig confirmed he had me beat.  His hair is pretty tall right now, but even if we're even, he'd likely pass me within weeks at the rate he's growing.  I guess it's time to give it up.  It's over.  It's just Carter and me in the bottom half now.

Much ado was made over our Christmas card photo since he appeared significantly taller than me, even though part of it was the angle and me being a bit hunched under Craig's armpit.

He definitely looked taller than me here at a pumpkin patch, but that was the difference between his thickly soled sneakers and my very flat flip flops.

And yet, just over a year ago, we had these:

(Carter was on a box here)

That's a lot of growth in a year!  It's a wonder we haven't been buying pants every couple months!  I guess we did have a hint when last year's school uniform pants weren't even close to going on back in August, but still.  It's crazy when you think they start out like this:

And yet before they hit teenagerhood, they could easily surpass the body that brought them into the world.  His feet passed me more than a year ago, and now the rest has followed.  I still outweigh him by a solid 25-30 pounds, for better or worse, but I have a feeling that won't last too long either.  And yes, in just over five months we will hit the teenage years officially.  I'm still not quite sure how that's possible.

The funny thing is, as a parent who--until this moment--has always been physically bigger, it takes some mental adjustment to live in this new reality.  For example:

• Up until recently I was giving him a kid knife at dinner.  That was maybe less a result of his size and more just his lack of dexterity with a knife, but still...he gets a real one now.  His hands are about the same size as mine, after all. 
• Up until sometime this fall, I hadn't really taken a recent look at the guidelines for riding in the front seat of the car, so he sat in the back.  When I realized he was not only old enough to be up front but also nearly my height and therefore theoretically big enough to handle the airbag, he immediately came up front when riding alone.  
• He can no longer be assumed to take up less space in restaurant booths (not that it matters right now) or living room furniture.  Wherever he's expected to fit, I should expect myself to fit there as well.  
• When he falls asleep on the couch and won't rouse enough to go to bed, I have no choice but to leave him there.  I can't carry someone my size upstairs, after all.
• I have lost most of my leverage for physically removing him from altercations with his brother or spaces I don't want him in.  Yes, I still outweigh him, so I can sort of pull him away with one big pull, but I really don't have a lot of recourse beyond that.  Gone are the days of physically carrying him away from a fight or tantrum to forcibly send him to his room.

We haven't come across this yet, and likely it'll be a while before it's at a critical point, but I know the day is coming where we'll need to get in a car and I will once again be relegated to the back seat because I fit better.  That will be quite a moment to reckon with.  On the bright side, maybe someday I'll need my stool in the kitchen a bit less.  Ironically, he still doesn't eat as much as me--at least not at dinner.  He eats his own weight in snacks each week, I think, but at meals he's not a huge eater yet.  I think his ADHD meds reduce his appetite on a regular basis but boredom wins out during his free time, hence the snacking.  I guess I should consider myself lucky for now, until I have to revamp my dinner portions to accommodate his teenage appetite.  It'll be a sad day when we have to add a third pizza crust, use the whole box of spaghetti, or crack open another bag of shrimp.  We do go through cereal like crazy already, so it's only a matter of time.

Parenthood is definitely full of odd paradoxes.  Probably the most prominent of those is that you want your child to grow but are a little sad when they actually do it.  It starts with that bittersweet feeling as they move out of the newborn phase and catching yourself crying as you pack away another size of clothes, and it moves into marveling with a tear or two over each new year of school or level of sports.  And before you know it, you're looking up at them (or maybe for dads, looking them straight in the eyes) and sending them off into the world.  It's all good--seeing them grow is not a privilege all parents get, sadly--but it's definitely hard to process sometimes.  When your baby is born, you can barely envision their first birthday, let alone starting school or becoming a teenager.  But before you know it, you're there.  With your first, every milestone makes them seem so big!  But the perspective tends to change with kid #2, when they always seem so much younger just because you're inevitably comparing them to their older sibling.  With Carter trailing behind by five years, it always amazed me how young he seemed in comparison at the same ages.  This was Jacob about a month before his eighth birthday, during a school concert.  Interestingly, Carter wore that exact same shirt today.

He looks so much more grown up to me.  He probably was an inch or two taller and probably had a slightly more serious air to him most of the time, but I'm guessing the differences aren't as big as they seem.  But the perspective is just so different from your first to your second.  And when you realize your youngest has surpassed so many milestones you thought were a big deal when kid #1 passed them, it's mind-blowing.  That's when you really start to realize just how fast this time goes.  

I'm sure I'll obsess over this growing-up thing a bit more in four weeks when Carter's birthday comes around, but since the milestones are few and far between these days, I figured Jacob surpassing me in height was probably blog-worthy.  We've come a long way, (big) baby boy.