99th percentile

Impossible.

That’s what I said when Anna told me the recent news. Benjamin, fresh off a visit with his baby-doc, had grown to the incredibly immense size of 32 pounds 12 ounces and 35 inches tall. Benjamin now weighs just barely more than a slug, which, for the uninitiated, is defined as the amount of mass that accelerates at 1 ft/s² when 1 lb of force is exerted on it (at least that’s what this smarmy English dude told me). This is also the weight of an average 3½ year old. Yes, you read that correctly. Ben probably weighs more than your kid if he/she was born anytime after April of 2003. Now, considering Benjamin was born in April of 2005, I would think that this is worth expounding upon.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you already know that our little boy has been abnormally large for almost all of his abnormal life. He was born a pedestrian 7 lbs, 11 oz, and measured a mere 20 inches tall. But ever since he was introduced to this thing called “solid food”, his girth has rocketed straight off the charts. His weight has maintained a level above the 99th percentile since he was around 6 months old, and I would imagine we’d find it nearly impossible to locate another member of that upper one percent. To the best of my memory, I have only seen one other kid Ben’s age in the past 18 months that appeared to be bigger than bigger ben, and that kid doesn’t count because I think he was actually a polar bear.

And the interesting thing is, Ben’s rate of weight-gain has actually slowed down! For the first time his height is almost exactly proportional to his weight. While Ben’s length was always well above the 90th percentile, he is now around the 99th. That’s about the height of your average 30-month old. Or the height of a standard barber pole. Or a small house. Put another way, Michael Jordan would have a difficult time leaping over Ben’s head (and who’s to say Ben couldn’t just reach up and swat the ball away? I can just hear Ben telling Michael to “get that weak sh*t outta here!”).

It’s amazing. Ben is so big, other smaller objects gravitate toward him. At any given moment you’ll witness an array of crayons, food particles, and neighborhood animals orbiting his midsection.

He is so tall, he hits his head on the very same table just three weeks ago he could walk under unimpeded. We’ll soon have to buy a new kitchen table for all the dents and nicks Ben has created with his forehead. And no object is safe on the edge of the table anymore. While most parents start worrying about placing their drinks too close to the edge of the table when their kid gets to be two or three years old, we’ve already had to take everything off of our table because Ben can reach all the way to the middle. Candles? Decorative centerpiece? Forget it.

Ah well, such are the joys of parenting in high-speed. I suppose it’s only appropriate, given the times that we live in, that our kids should grow up too fast as well. I just thought that when my parents kept telling me that we should treasure these moments because they’ll sweep past you before you know it, that that would include treasuring a baby-sized baby as well. Ben hasn’t been baby-sized since he was four months old.

And I thought for sure by now Anna’s arm would fall off from under the weight of the “infant” she’s carried around for so long. And her back! She’s forced to pick up and lug around a three-year old on her hip because although he can walk, he usually can’t walk fast enough. Let me ask you: when’s the last time you saw a skinny little mom at the mall lugging around her three-year old instead of letting the kid run circles around her?

We had a toddler at 6 months. We have a pre-schooler at 18 months. What will we have at three years? A pre-teen? An adult? A horse?

slippin' and slidin'

I would just like to point out that last weekend's Chicago Marathon winner, Mr. Robert 'Sweet Lou' Cheruiyot of Kenya, was released from the hospital today after suffering a "bruised brain" during a tragic collapse at the finish line due to the even more tragic stupidity of the marathon event planners. I would also like to point out that he was wearing an outift apparently inspired by his earlier viewing of this here blog and the recently-posted image of his long-time pal, Mr. Benjamin 'Sloppy Kisses' Bonick.

Cracker, Cracker, Cracker!

Ah, yes. The Cracker Dance. How could I forget.

babbling brook

We’ve reached the age where words are streaming from Benjamin’s mouth like water from a faucet. Now, the water is a little cloudy, and sometimes difficult to digest, but it is indeed water – I think – and it’s starting to run onto the floor.

Having Benjamin glued to your side all day - not my side of course, but my wife’s- has its own drawbacks, not the least of which means that you now have to watch your mouth around the little megaphone who is ready and waiting to transmit your every breath to the entire world – over, and over, and over again. As if tripping you at every turn, pulling on your pants (sometimes until they hang off your butt like you’re trying to impress your neighbor‘s 16-year old kid), and generally being a mild annoyance aren’t enough reasons to wish your toddler could just sit down, goddammit, and read a book or something, now you have to worry if he’s going to actually repeat the four-letter abomination that slipped past your lips after you dropped the steaming hot soup ladle on your foot.

And of course we try to cover-up these obscenities. Like when you let one out and you try to disguise it with a suffix or another phrase: “Oh shit! I mean. . . uh. . . Look at the ship, Benjamin! The rocket ship!”

Or: “Mother-f***er! I. . . uh. . . meant to say. . . ah. . . Mother. . . uh. . . Fumble. . booblestein! Yeah, yeah, Fumble. . . boob. . .le. . . yeah.”

It never works.

But I don’t think Anna is finding this quite as difficult as I am. She’s never really been able to swear worth a darn in her life. Myself, however. . . well, damn, I can’t even write a blog about my darling little infant son without letting two or three blunders sneak out onto the screen. Anna must have politely reminded me to “dude, watch your mouth” at least seventeen times during dinner yesterday, and I wasn’t even in a bad mood! Luckily Ben was more consumed with the cold pizza in his hands then the ramblings of his father, which, unfortunately, I don’t see as being a trend that will discontinue any time soon.

But yes, the words my son speak are nothing short of amazing for us, considering we have been patiently awaiting this event the whole of Ben’s natural life. He always seems to be trying to tell us something, getting incredibly frustrated in the process, and now for the first time we can actually understand him. Sort of. Usually we have to tell our visitors what he is actually babbling, because they haven’t been around him enough to understand that “deece” means “please” and “da-do-do” means “W”. But we know.

And we are proud to say that he can visually and verbally identify all of his basic shapes: gi-ga-ga (triangle), skae (square), ka-kle (circle), as well as the following letters: E, H, M, O, W, and X.

You may note that the few letters that Ben can visually identify almost spell out the name, ELMO, who very well may be Ben’s personal idol. If Ben could have a sit-down with Elmo and Cookie Monster, I think he might mistake it for heaven, save for the fact that Cookie Monster would be eating all of Ben’s beloved crackers.

Watch out, Cookie - I would hate to have to glue back on your nose after Ben yanks it off. . .