My GIANT Baby

If you are my Facebook friend you may have seen my status update mentioning the fact that one of my friends called Chloe, "GIANT!" Never in a million years would I have imagined a situation where I would consider someone calling my daughter a "GIANT" to be a compliment but here I am. She said it. I was completely happy to hear it. People have been telling me a lot lately how big Chloe is and, to tell the truth, I just figured they were being nice. Come to think of it, people don't even flinch when I tell them she's 10 months old. Chloe's still tiny in my eyes. But I mentioned this to Dave and we got talking. Maybe she's getting a lot bigger and we just aren't noticing it because we see and hold her every single day....it's a thought. She hasn't been weighed in about a month so we don't have that constant weight report that we used to.


Chloe's little bathtub has a hammock attachment for newborns that I've been using. The morning after our conversation I decided to take the hammock out. One side of the tub has a reclined seat for babies who aren't sitting yet and the other side has a straight seat for sitters. I put her in the reclined seat and...Holy Moley! She's TOTALLY big enough for this! I can't believe I still had her in the hammock! Then Dave set her in the exersaucer and whatdoyaknow - she fit - and loved it!


So yesterday I weighed myself and then myself+Chloe on the bathroom scale. According to that, she's 13.2 pounds. Yes! I decided to take all the 0-3 month clothes out of circulation. They all say "up to 12 pounds" after all. I put them in the plastic storage bin and noticed Chloe's preemie stuff that was already in there. I got an idea - a little experiment. Here's the outcome. These pictures will blow your mind. Dave's eyeballs popped out of his head Jim Carey style when he saw the one of Solana carrying her.


Here Chloe is modeling her round belly next to one of the preemie outfits she wore her first month at home. (Hmmm)


I tried to put it on her... (Wow)


I tried to close the snap... (Hahahaha)



Then Solana asked if she could hold Chloe. (YOWZA!) Doesn't Chloe look humongous?!? I promise this picture is not digitally enhanced.


After our second visit to the pulmonologist I noticed the doctor typed "Good Job Mom!" in the post visit instruction notes. And I must admit that, although her weight gain isn't actually a result of my effort, I liked it :-) But Chloe's weight gain the month after that visit was less impressive (that was the month she had her cataract surgery). I have tracked every single mL Chloe has eaten since January in a little log book and take note if she takes less in a day than I expect. Perhaps I don't need to obsess so much. I believe she's picked up the pace again. There just may be a gold star in my future, after all...