Neither Big nor Little

June 11, 2008

We love old-fashioned measures of a child's growth (pencil ticks on a door frame, naturally). 

We swoon over the rather newer-fashioned eeBoo growth charts that hang in many little rooms we see.

But we really adore the other measures out there.  The ones that only a mom or dad knows.  The ones you can remember even when the details of inches and feet escape your suddenly sieve-like mind.  The ones that are qualitative, descriptive, event-triggered.  No statistics here; just a window on a little life, in upward motion.

Is your little one tall enough to push a quarter into the slot of the parking meters in your town?

Do you remember when your just-walker tried to dart under the dining room table again and hadn't yet accounted for last night's growth spurt?  Yep, that forehead bump lasted a while. 

Can your preschooler reach the faucet and soap in the bathroom sink all by herself?  Without a stool?

Have you trusted him to set or clear the dinner table with the "real" dishes?  That's big, no growth chart needed.

Have you checked the front door recently?  You just might faint the first time your little one reaches for and flips even the tippy-top deadbolt.  Time for a safety check there -- and some smelling salts for you.

Suddenly too big for the "tot spot" at your local museum/aquarium/museum? 

Can't be wrestled into the bucket swings anymore?  But still falls off the "big kid swings" pretty often.  Preschool-aged, alright.

Somehow these alternative measures are closer to our heart.  We like the data on the pediatrician's chart, and we use it for car seat reference and all that good stuff.  But numbers alone can't tell us the stuff that really marks a little one's path to big kid-dom. 

And to think, he was so teeny tiny just a blink ago....

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