She Ain't Heavy...Oh Wait, Yes She Is

When my son Ryan was born, he weighed in at a hefty 9 pounds, 4 ounces. And he grew exponentially from there. At ten weeks old, he already weighed 20 pounds. The forms we got from the pediatrician at every appointment listing his height and weight gave up on calling him “100^th percentile” and admitted he was “>100^th percentile”. He was just a big ol’ chunk-a-monk from the very beginning.

Ryan at 6 months old

He’s slimmed down some now, but he’s still a big kid, weighing in at 40 pounds and 3’ 3” on his second birthday, and still 100th percentile or more.

So when Katie was born at 9 pounds, 9 ounces, I was concerned that she’d follow the same meteoric growth trajectory. But although she’s in the mid-90s for both height and weight percentiles, she’s a much more ladylike, delicate peanut than my big pumpkin. At five months old, she weighs just over 17 pounds. After hauling around my giant firstborn, she still feels like a feather to me! I can actually lift her with just one arm, I can hold her in the air over my head, and I can let her lean on my arm for hours without it falling asleep.

I can let her lean on my arm for hours when she’s awake, that is. Because boy, does she magically gain about ten more pounds when she falls asleep. I never really understood the term “dead weight” until Katie was born. Like her brother, she tends to go from fully awake to fully asleep in the (literal) wink of an eye. No in-between half-asleep phase, no long slow blinks, no light sleep before she goes out for good. She has an on-off toggle switch, not a dimmer. And you don’t have to be looking at her to know when she’s asleep, because when you’re holding her you can feel her gain weight as she loses consciousness.

It does remind me that she is still a big baby relative to others her age. She seems so petite to me because my main basis of comparison is her unusually large brother. To me, she ain’t heavy, she’s my baby!