We were at Babies "R" We the other day, and I was letting Hendrik crawl around while Melanie studied various car seats for the better part of an hour. The Babies R We crowd is very similar to the Utah crowd, which is to say that everybody around has their own babies and they don't think that other babies are all that cute or amazing. Hench would approach people, as is his custom, and climb up on their leg, looking up for a little hint of humanity. Some people were amused, others gave me this look like "How dare you let your child crawl around in here and touch me! Do you realize how many germs he has!!! For shame!" This one particular grandma gave him a little more attention.
"Oh, how cute! How old is he?"
"11 months."
"Oh, wow! He's so tiny! My grandson is 4 months old and is also his size! He's growing like 2 inches a week!"
Then, the Babies R We employee assisting them also put in her 2 cents: "Oh, yes! What a little peanut!"
"Yes!" said the grandma, "a little peanut! Are you a little peanut? Yes, you are! Come here, peanut!"
End of conversation.
Let me just put this on the record: There is nothing more annoying that boisterous parents/g-parents when discussing the size of their chunky offspring, especially when comparing to other kids. It's like they take personal credit that their kid has a slow metabolism or whatever else causes fat babies to be fat. They like to extrapolate their kid's size, thinking they will be 6'9 offensive linemen or whatever it is that large women aspire to be (plus-size models? talk-show hosts? birthing machines? garbage-women?). They like to pass judgment on the parents of smaller kids, whispering to their spouses, "Do they even feed him? Can they not afford food? Are they just spending all of their money on booze? They probably lock their kid in the closet when they go boozing! What awful parents!"
They might as well just come out and say it: "My baby is larger than your baby, and, therefore, better. That is a direct result of my superior parenting, which implies that I am a better parent and, therefore, a better person than you are or probably will ever be. I win. I win at life."
In full disclosure, Hendrik is not a small baby. He's average. 50 percentile in height and weight. I have no room to brag or complain. I point that out to everybody who says he's big ("Actually, he's exactly average."), or small ("HE'S NOT A &#%$ PEANUT!!!"), if I have the chance. The grandma who says her grandson is 22 pounds at 4 months is probably either batty or blind (or both), so I didn't bother clarifying that Hendrik isn't a "peanut", in fact, he's an orange, which seems to be an average-size food.
Hendrik also eats ridiculous amounts of food, so much that we have to just stop feeding him when we think he's had enough, otherwise he'll just keep eating. We thought he'd be bigger than average, but it turns out that the food just goes in one end and out the other.
If he was huge, I'd probably be taking personal credit for his hugeness and rubbing it in all the sad sacks' faces that my kid was destined to a successful life without need for step stools or platform shoes, and their kid will probably give into a life-threatening disease as a direct result of their poor parenting (calm down-this is a joke).
Actually, I wouldn't. I made a pact to myself before Hendrik was born that I would never brag about the things that I couldn't take credit for. Which is pretty much everything, because I don't do any parenting. I just give a lot of "performance feedback" for my wife. So I'll just take credit for how great of a mom she is.
