Adventures on the Playground: The Big Kid is Always the Bully

I took Xander to the park yesterday. He has a lot of energy and his coordination is best summed up as "bull in a china shop," so we visit parks a lot. Combine that clumsiness with his size, and I'm sure you can imagine what my living room looks like after he's ricocheted around it a few times.

(interiordesignbydunstan.blogspot.com)

We're fortunate to live in an area with quite a few very fun, very well kept parks, but we do have a couple favorites. It was after-school time (3 p.m.), which is a great time to go to the park if you're Xander: lots of kids and they are fairly exuberant, having just spent seven hours in school. (At his age, I preferred to visit the park when no one was there--it was deeply disappointing to arrive and discover even one other child already present. Ugh, I might have to talk to that kid. Or, worse, that kid might have an overzealous parent who would encourage playing. Yuck. I did not want to play. I wanted to climb to a comfortable spot and contemplate my life.) Xander loves to run around with older kids and participate in their games in whatever way he can. Normally they are pretty tolerant and let him tag along. He also hopes to find a girl with long, blonde "princess hair" that he can impress with his ladder-climbing and ring-hanging prowess. He will actually tell me he doesn't want to play at that park if there aren't a suitable number of big kids (not babies) there. Since my inclination is to avoid all public settings at high volume times, I have to make a conscious effort to get him to parks in the afternoon.

So there we are. A decent number of kids are playing, Xander has found some kindergarten boys to play pirates with, and I am in the shade with my Perrier. (My life suddenly sounds so chi-chi. Let me remind everyone that when I got back into the car my hair--pulled back in a ponytail--was sticking up in about eight different directions.

(racheldevine.com)

Thank you, spring wind in Texas. I did not look the picture of relaxing fizzy beverages that Perrier might hope for in a spokesperson. Also, I got the Perrier (a whole liter!) for 79 cents in the Kroger bargain bin.)

And it happens. A kid about Xander's age starts crying and is shepherded to mom by a concerned older brother. "That boy was mean!" the older one announces indignantly. "He pushed him down and kicked his head!" His account is accurate; I saw the incident and while the pushing may have been accidental, the kicking was not.

"Who did it?" the mom wants to know.

"The boy in the blue shirt." Older brother makes a great eyewitness. His account is spot on.

Xander, at that moment, does a face plant in the wood chips. As he gets up, I see the unmistakeable "must not cry in front of bigger boys but I soooo want my mama" expression on his face. I head over to check the damage.

When I return to my spot on the bench, the group of moms is whispering. One of them mutters something about "her son" and realize that Xander is being blamed for the pushing/kicking incident. I look back at Xander, spitting wood bits into the grass.

He's wearing a blue shirt.

Instantly, I know what is going on. I have identified myself as the mother of that horrible child who has injured the little boy. Except that we'd only been there for a few minutes, and I'd been watching Xander every moment.

No one comes over to directly accuse Xander of this crime. They rarely do. Most moms instead prefer the whisper campaign, trading assumptions and generalization with one another. I usually just (inwardly) roll my eyes and continue. I went to high school. I've seen Mean Girls. Y'all can waste your time disparaging my parenting while my son and I have a good time at the park. I'm sure that brine of bitterness does wonders for one's skin.

If the mom had approached me, I could have set straight. I saw what happened. Xander was not involved. It wouldn't matter though, so I don't mind the mom's cowardice. No matter what I say, Xander is guilty because he is big. Never mind that the other boy in a blue shirt--Xander's age or a bit older, but much smaller--has been consistently terrorizing the other children: throwing wood chips, hitting, kicking, and not taking turns. I know what she'll say without hearing it because I've head it so many times before. When another child is put forth as the offender, the indignant mom blurts, "But he's so tiny."

Big Baby Truism #10: Big kids are automatically pegged as the aggressor, even when there is evidence to the contrary.

My dad, a former big kid himself and current six-foot-five "giant," warned me about this phenomenon, but I've still been amazed to see it play out so predictably at parks and kiddie classes. If the culprit for hitting/shoving/kicking is not immediately known, Xander is always the first suspect. Even when another kid is the bully, he will accuse Xander and the grownups fall for it with startling regularity. If, heaven forfend, Xander bumps into a child on accident, the mom gives the side eye as if my three-year-old is an expert at making purposeful violence look haphazard.

It's not fair. The most unfair part is that I can't change it; the idea that big equals bully is obviously deeply ingrained in our cultural psyche. For all the benefits of size and strength, we seem to unduly punish big kids for all kinds of imagined acts of aggression or premeditated cruelty.

"Well, tiny kids can be mean too," I point out when I get the opportunity. Meanness is in no way associated with size.

Honestly, it's counter-intuitive to me that big kids would be physically aggressive. They don't need it. Demonstrations of physical prowess are the domain of the small, the ones who have something to prove. Any kid can look at Xander and see that he can hold his own physically. (Well, unless we're having a balancing contest.) As such, Xander rarely throws the first punch. Why does he need to hit a kid? His size alone often intimidates other kids into surrendering toys and territory, even when intimidation isn't intentional. (On this same trip to the park, Xander very nicely asked a little girl for a turn on her swing. She agreed readily, then ran straight to her mom and accused Xander of taking her swing. It's possible she was playing her mom--she was the kind of mom who followed her kids around the playground correcting everything they did ("Don't pick that up! Don't touch that! You're too small to climb that!" etc.)--but it's equally possible that while Xander's words were kind, his size was perceived as threatening.) We all have a survival instinct, I guess; even little kids understand size equals power, at least physically, and that superiority should be treated carefully.

Since I can't change how kids or parents react to Xander's size, the best I can do is teach him to be his own advocate. More so than for most kids, he will have become adept at speaking up for himself. Right now, that's my job. "He's big for his age. He just turned three and half," I tell moms all the time (clarifying age is often the first step in realigning people's expectations of Xander, I've learned), "and he's still learning how to behave, but he didn't [insert crime here] just now."

Beyond showing big kids how to stand up for themselves in the face of false accusations, the next best thing a Big Baby Parent can do is be honest with themselves about their children. We've all met the parent who believes her child can do no wrong and so has a small terror running wild and victimizing the other kids because mom just somehow never sees any of his negative behaviors. At this very same park (I'm starting to think we shouldn't go there anymore) on a different occasion, a boy repeatedly kicked Xander. Since Xander obviously wasn't being hurt, I waited to see if the kids could sort it out. After the fifth kick, I intervened. . .carefully. I didn't correct the kicking boy, since that raises the hackles of other parents. I suggested to Xander that since the other boy was hurting him, maybe he should find something else to do for a while. The boy's mom noticed what was happening--her son was still trying to kick Xander as I led him away--so she made him say to Xander, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kick you" which was the strangest non-apology I'd ever heard. He "accidentally" kicked Xander in the legs and back over and over again, all while holding on to the park equipment for support? Interesting.

Big Baby Parents cannot afford to be that parent; other parents won't let you, anyway. They'll call attention to your kid's supposed misbehavior before you can even blink. So be pragmatic. I don't for one second think Alexander wouldn't be rough on purpose with other kids. I've seen him hit and push. He's no delicate flower and he's certainly gotten into fisticuffs before. I know he is capable of these things. Because of that and because of the attitude we so often encounter, I'm very vigilant. When he's accused of wrongdoing, I need to know if he really did something or not. He should be punished appropriately for being too rough, but when he's been good and kept his hands to himself, I need to defend him.

I want him to see that when you follow the rules, you need to speak up and let people who doubt know that you followed the rules. Because I think one possible source of the big kids are bullies mentality is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some big kids get wrongfully accused of--and punished for--rough behavior so often that they think, "Well, if I'm going to get in trouble anyway, I may as well push some kids around." That's one of my biggest fear for Xander, especially as he enters full-time school, since I know that even teachers are not immune to assuming the big kid is the guilty party in all situations. (I've literally sat at the park with a sobbing Xander clutching the goose egg on his head while the mom of his attacker maintained, with red-faced vehemence, that her son--dry-eyed and grinning slyly behind her--was the one who had been hit. By Xander, of course.) Big Baby Parents need to acknowledge when their kids are in the wrong, but push against the stereotype when their kids are in the right. After all, you can only take the blame if you in fact accept it. When a big kid has done nothing wrong, he shouldn't be forced to accept responsibility because of others' preconceived notions about size.

The tougher and more complex lesson here is that often big kids' intentions don't matter. Xander followed all the necessary conventions of politeness and turn-taking when he asked for the swing, and yet there was still fall-out. Learning how to interact with your peers is hard enough without having to factor in that your size often speaks louder--and in opposition to--your true intentions. Sadly, as a woman I feel like I can relate and am prepared to help him navigate this disconnect. I've experienced first hand many times how men react to me in a way that's completely out of sync with the image I'm presenting. I was, memorably, accused of seducing boys in the weight room in college (not in quite so many words, but that was the implication--not because of anything I done but because of my mere presence.) I seldom even talked to anyone in the weight room except to occasionally ask if I could work in a set, but while I was asking that question, my breasts (squished nearly flat in a sports bra) were evidently saying, "Come hither." Never mind that my favored workout wear at the time was anything free: xl t-shirts and hand-me-down basketball shorts. (I did have a few tees with snarky sayings, but I was 18 and it was 2001. And I don't recall ever wearing my "panty bandit" shirt to the gym, so I did show some judgment.) I had to learn what most women do: that no matter your intentions or your attitude or your outfit, you are often (usually, even) perceived as a sex object. Xander will have to, in a similar way, reconcile that his attitude will often be ignored and people will respond to his size only.

But that's a lesson for another day. Yesterday, Xander played nicely with everyone at the park and I was proud of him, despite what other people thought. Ultimately, that's the best lesson: you can't control what other people think, but that's okay: what matters is that you know you've behaved your best and been true to yourself.

No leftovers! Practical Advice for Feeding a Hungry Preschooler

Thursday, 2:20 p.m.

It's preschool pickup time, and I'm in the hallway pulling papers out of my son's cubby: lovingly painted abstract watercolors, macaroni necklaces, letters made from Fruit Loops. Moms and departing kids are jostling past me. The mom of one of Xander's classmates is emptying her child's cubby as well.

"They were busy today," she says conversationally. I nod. The mom picks up her child's lunchbox and peeks inside. "Don't you love it," she says with sudden passion, "that they send home the leftovers so you know exactly what your kid ate or didn't eat for lunch?"

Oh.

I have never peeked in Xander's lunchbox after school, not until I'm at home, standing by the sink ready to wash out the dishes. I know exactly what is inside: empty plastic containers. Not a morsel of food. Every piece is licked clean. If I didn't know better, I'd say the teachers washed the containers at school.

"Y-yes," I stutter, mind racing. I had assumed the teachers tossed the few uneaten scraps of food so that the classroom didn't smell like leftovers all afternoon. Even though Xander's a big eater, I hadn't honestly thought he'd eaten everything every day. I figured in the bustle and excitement of school, he might not get to some things.

Now I'm a bit panicked. Has he been hungry every day? Does he eat all his food and wish for more? What does he think when he sees other kids not even eating all their food? It's true that his first words in the car each afternoon are, "What's my snack?" (I dutifully bring crackers of some sort for him to munch on the ride home every day.)

Has my child been hungry every day?

This is a lingering fear for big baby parents. I've had it since Xander was born. It's a sneaky and seemingly irrational fear: when a child eats three times the normal amount, how could he possibly still be hungry?

But big baby parents know. What their child eats and when he is satisfied cannot be measured on the normal standard. Xander would nurse for forty-five minutes and scream in hunger twenty minutes later. He'd down 25 ounces of baby food and want his next meal early. He'll beg for a snack at 4 and eat a man-sized dinner at 5:30. Keeping a big baby satisfied often defies logic and what should be the physical capacity of a kid's stomach.

We identify with this commercial:

Nervously, I ask Xander's teacher, "Does he really eat all his food every day?"

Oh yes, I am assured. Such a good eater.

"Do I need to pack more?"

I don't even know how I would accomplish this. I ordered Xander a regular-sized lunch box, figuring if it holds enough lunch for an eight-year-old, it'll do for my (then) two-year-old.

(from the Pottery Barn Kids website)

This picture does not demonstrate its capacity, but it holds quite a bit. (Let's be honest: this lunchbox is laughably under-packed. I have never put so little in Xander's lunch.) I pack it so full every day that the zipper strains. Part of the squeeze is that I insist on packing reusable containers. The only way to fit more food is to downgrade to Ziplocs.

Big Baby Truism #8: Buy a big lunch box.

Apparently, buying Xander a lunchbox meant for elementary school appetites was too modest. I need a construction-worker lunch box. One the size of my dad's toolbox, with a lid that swings open on top and can hold enough food for a grown man.

The teacher admits that more food might be a good thing. Sometimes he asks the other kids for their extras. (I am mortified.)

Xander, a child of routine, usually has a lunch with the following items:

Sunbutter and honey sandwich on wheat bread (full size--no halfsies here)
Veggie chips or crackers with hummus
Yogurt or applesauce (4-6 oz, depending on brand)
Sweet or treat: bunny grahams, olives, two slices of the insanely expensive smoked gouda my little gourmand enjoys, etc.
milk (10 oz.)

Where to add more? How to add more?

Here are my tips on packing lunches for big babies (who have grown into big kids):

*Pack moderate amounts of quite a few different foods. Smaller containers are easier to Tetris into a lunch box ergo less wasted space. Also, a variety ensures that even if one food isn't your kid's preference today, he still has plenty to fill him up.

*Sacrifice reusable containers. . .reasonably. Items like chips that don't fit well into plastic containers I now put in Ziplocs. (These can by brought home, washed, and reused. Just ask the teacher not to toss them.)

*Skimp on drinks. I scored a lot more space when I downsized Xander from a 10 oz sippy to an 8 oz box of Horizon milk. If he's still thirsty, he can get water at school.

*Double up. Some days, depending on what else is in his lunch, I'll give Xander two yogurts or extra applesauce. Sometimes I give him one of each instead of just one or the other.

*Go high calorie. What Xander wants at school is to replace all the energy he's burned playing, learning, and behaving (the latter is especially taxing). If your kiddo needs 600 calories, try to fit it into the smallest quantities that are possible and healthy. Cheese, yogurt, grains, and beans (such as hummus or black bean dip) are perfect for this purpose. Carrots are great, but they don't fill up a hungry kid. I save those for snacks in the car or at home and as a side for dinner.

*Stick with winners. Pack your kid's favorite foods. I don't mean you have to give him pizza every day, but pack things that are generally acceptable to him: a favorite sandwich, cracker, or fruit. At school, he needs to refuel. New or objectionable foods are best worked on at home, where you can set your expectations and follow through. At school, he just needs to eat.

To test if Xander really needed all this food, I sent him the next two days with foods I knew he didn't particularly care for: bell pepper strips and sliced apple. (He prefers to bite into apples himself.) Lo and behold, these were the two (and thus far only) items to return to me in his lunchbox. He was also surly and moody until I got a snack into him, a sure sign he hadn't had enough to eat.

People often tell me "Wait till he's in a teenager!" in regard to eating. I don't need to wait. He already eats like a teenager. I can only imagine that he'll eat like some sort of massive livestock when he hits his teens. (He will probably be happy to eat massive livestock.) In the meantime, I'm working on getting him hooked on healthy but inexpensive foods that I can buy in bulk. (He doesn't like rice for crying out loud. It's a work in progress.)

And next year I'll be buying a bigger lunch box.

Mayhap this one:

27 months, 13 days, 10 hours, and 24 minutes, to be exact

I am relieved that Alexander is two.

Now that you have finished your incredulous cries of "What?!" and chucking your computer across the room in absolute disgust at my craziness, allow me to clarify. Alexander is a typical two-year-old: he is both extraordinarily fun and surprisingly naughty. Obviously, he has been reading the "Terrible Two" chapters in our parenting books and made sure that, as usual, he is overachieving. He is very two. He throws twenty-minute tantrums when I turn down his oh-so-reasonable request to have M&Ms for dinner. He talks incessantly, narrating his activities ("I am on the couch, reading a book. I like books. This one is about Franklin. Now I open it.") and often begins sentences addressed to me with "I need. . ." (We are working on not treating adults as servants, which is clearly a disruption of the toddler's Great Chain of Being. A chart of which, by the way, someone far more clever than I--perhaps The Honest Toddler--needs to create.) So please don't continue in the illusion that Alexander is one of those enviable children who seem to bypass the challenges of this age.

Still, at his second birthday party, I looked at the assembled guests and Alexander, crusted with red frosting from his Elmo cake, and I felt thrilled. The exhilaration was different from my sentiments at his first birthday. After twelve months of parent boot camp (overseen by Captain Alexander, a merciless and exacting commander), I was amazed that I had survived. That alone was worth a party. I also felt slightly melancholy that Xander's days as a baby were rapidly waning.

Now, at two, we are fully ensconced in toddlerhood. There are no remaining remnants of the baby I once had and, if I'm sad about that, the toddler I currently live with has not given me time to reflect upon it. (Some people address this lack of a baby by having another. To you I say: you're crazy and lucky and I wish you good luck. I hope you sleep sometime in the next calendar year.) My joy when Xander turned two had entirely to do with one very simple, very common question:

"How old is he?"

Oh, the agony and awkwardness that question has spawned. When I answer specifically (in months), other parents react with jealousy, disbelief, annoyance, or some dangerous cocktail of all three. (If you snorted at that, you've never seen a mom hopped up on a few shots of Some Other Child Has Outdone My Own.)

For kids under two, giving age in months is standard. When the asker of the dreaded question seemed especially volatile, I would occasionally take the coward's route, answering casually, "Oh, he's one."

It never worked. "How many months?" the mom would press.

At which point I would gird my big girl panties and tell her.

After several times succumbing to the temptation to generalize, I had a wake up call. One of the parenting magazines to which I subscribe ran (gasp!) a blurb on big babies. Once I picked my lower jaw up off the floor and brought my heart rate back to a healthy level, I read the one-hundred words this issue evidently deserves (I weep) and lost teeth and control of my blood pressure all over again.

Here, in a graph the size of a postage stamp, moms of big babies were admitting they often fudged their kids' ages to avoid the response they got (or expected) from other parents.

Nooooooo! No, big baby parents. Bad, big baby parents.

I'm pretty sure that's actually a rough transcript of the words that exploded from my frothing mouth.

Big Baby Truism #7: Never, ever (never ever!) lie about your child's age.

People lie when they have something to hide. A child then, will hear his parent lying about age and assume that it is something of which to be ashamed. Consider situations in which children lie: when they have broken the rules, when they have done something they know will infuriate or disappoint those around them. It's why the imaginary friend broke the water glass, why kids will tell you, "I didn't push my brother!" when both of you know that's exactly what happened. Lying about a child's age says, "This fact about you, which is beyond your control, is embarrassing. We shouldn't tell other people about it." To deceive people about age, an immutable and seemingly incidental feature, sends the message that something is wrong with the child.

Big kids should never be made to feel ashamed of their age or their size. The world is going to give them plenty of chances to feel self-conscious, and they don't need another. I fully understand how (at best) annoying and (at worst) stressful it can be to reveal my son's exact age to strangers.

But you know what? How they feel about his age or his size is their issue and not mine. If they want to be incredulous or admiring or indignant or mean, that is their own choice. It shouldn't change my willingness to be truthful about Xander's age.

Being forthright on this issue teaches Alexander two very vital lessons. First, it underscores that telling the truth is important, even when it seems like a lie might not be a big deal. Second, it shows him that I am not embarrassed by him, that his uncommon size and age is not an inconvenience to me but is a feature I willingly accept. In fact, I am proud enough that I will endure flak from other adults who are less accepting and understanding.

Beyond those lifelong character building aspects, confessing Xander's age is also the best opportunity to model how to deal with these exchanges on his own in the future. If I lie about his age now, what is to stop him from being untruthful himself when the time comes? Instead, I'd rather that he watch how I handle the various responses so that he can follow what I hope is a positive example. Being exposed to the spectrum of feelings that his age and size elicit should also desensitize him to the responses in the future, so that an answer of "Are you serious?" or "But you're so. . .big!" will be commonplace, unremarkable, the kind of response that he has come to expect.

As parents (that sound you hear is me dragging out my soapbox), a huge part of our job is preparing our kids for their lives without us. How will they cope? How should they act? In the most rudimentary way, Alexander is learning the fundamentals of those lessons when he observes me socializing with others. Since I'm generally shy and gawky, I'm a pretty poor example in most respects; maybe that makes this age lesson seem even more important. Still, kids need the affirmation that who they are--those unchangeable features they have to own rather than fight--is worthy. Worthy of attention, worthy of love, and worthy of honesty.

So am I glad I can skate by with "Two!" and not enumerate exact months, leaving the listener to assume he's almost three? I am. Will I gladly answer when someone wants to know when he turns three? You betcha. In October. He's currently 27 months. At 41 inches and 45 pounds, he's the size of a four year old. You've got a problem with that? Fine. But I don't have a problem telling you exactly how old--and therefore revealing exactly how big--he is.

Eaten Out of House and Home: Keeping a Big Baby Fed

Okay, so it appears that I manage to post to this blog as often as I descale my coffee maker. Now that everyone is gagging a bit thinking about the mineral buildup in my Mr. Coffee, I will confess the obvious: I need to descale and post more often. Why? The short answer is that I am funny and wise. (Guru wise, not smart ass wise.) The longer--and truer--answer is that I have a lot to say. That fact in and of itself isn't news, but the more time I spend on ye olde internet the more it becomes apparent that I have things to say that no one else is saying. In particular, a whole lot of people (most of them moms) have gone mildly bonkers and no one is pointing it out. Also, I have read enough blogs to notice two things: 1) Lots of other people's blogs (so inane! so irrational! so blatantly false!) drive me nuts and I have nowhere to vent about it except to Brian who, let's be honest, at this point pretty much has heard all of my speeches. And 2) nobody knows how to start a story. If I read one more &%%$( parenting blog that starts, "So today I was thinking about. . ." I will throw my under-descaled coffeemaker out the window. (Making it defenestrated rather than descaled.) If you are writing about a certain topic, we assume that you were also thinking about it! Has no one heard of a "hook" or at least "interesting"?

So here are my resolutions, o people of the electronic void. A. I will post once a week. B. I will not worry about who I irritate or piss off. I will be reasoned and civil but I will not worry about the one person I know who might. . .possibly. . .maybe. . .occasionally find reason to take offense at what I say. Motherhood offers a million opportunities to be offended and we all just need to get over it. No one parents in exactly the same way and there is a huge spectrum of behaviors and choices that is normal and acceptable and effective. Very few people take an identical path. Here I will write about my path.

In the spirit of past posts and inspired by my new fiery resolve, I offer you this Big Baby Truism: You have unique problems and no one wants to hear about them.

In the slideshow of baby pictures that is my PowerBook's (old school!) hard drive, I have one photo that is conspicuously missing the smiling mug of my sweet baby boy. Instead, I have captured in frame five empty four-ounce baby food containers, the contents of which comprised my five-month-old's dinner. Yes, in less than twenty minutes he downed a day's-worth of Gerber.

Considering the terrifying variety of syndromes, diseases, delays, and maladies that can befall a child, "eating a lot" is not even a blip on the radar. I can easily imagine moms of premature or sickly babies lining up to trade problems. Trust me, I have never wanted that trade. While I have been awed and slightly scared of Alexander's appetite, I know it doesn't even register as a "problem."

Still, having a voracious baby has a measurable impact on life. For one thing, it is expensive. No matter how you procure the food--buy it, puree it yourself, join Costco--you are buying more of whatever it is you serve your child. Since Alexander ate three times a regular infant's intake in a single day, I spent a wallet-busting few months madly pureeing and skulking the baby food aisle during sales.

Secondly, our lives began to revolve around his eating. We memorably attended a get-together at a friend's house where Alexander ate at least 50% of the chips and queso that was out for the adults. I also fed him the dinner I had packed, foreseeing him far out-eating his allotted portion. After finally cutting him off of the queso, we took our leave. Barely on the highway, Xander was crying for food. We stopped to get him a grilled cheese sandwich since he obviously was not going to manage the forty-minute drive home.

Perhaps most stressfully, I was Alexander's primary food source for six months. A mom who hasn't breastfed can't quite imagine how wonderful and relentless a job it is. I cherished the snuggle time and the bonding and at the very same time wished that once--just once!--someone else could answer his cries so that I could finish my shower/email/meal/sleep cycle. When that crying baby is unnaturally hungry, the burden on mom is even heavier. He never spent less than thirty minutes at the breast. Often, he would eat for forty-five to sixty minutes, take a fifteen minute break, and then start in on a new feeding as though he hadn't eaten in hours. Think about all of the basic tasks you perform in a day--bathing, brushing teeth, using the bathroom, getting dressed, eating meals--and then consider doing them in fifteen minute bursts. For months, I couldn't get out of the shower without hearing Alexander yowling in the next room, indignant that I had taken ten minutes for personal hygiene. I usually spent an average of ten hours a day sitting under the Boppy, feeding him.

If you are reading this and thinking, "Oh, woe is you! Your baby is strong and healthy and hungry!" then you get my point. A healthy, hungry baby is a great "problem" to have. I don't regret my choice to breastfeed Alexander (in fact, I think the nutritional and emotional satisfaction encouraged his hearty eating and fueled his incredible growth) and I feel honored to have played such an intimate role in his survival. I don't begrudge an ounce of milk that I gave him. I know I am lucky to live in a society stable and successful enough that I can feed myself and my baby well.

Because of all of that, I felt I couldn't complain about the very real effects of all that eating. I was exhausted. I was physically worn from producing milk and getting up all night. I was emotionally wrought from constantly wondering if Alexander could ever be satisfied. Why was he so hungry? Was he never actually full? Could it possibly be normal for him to eat so much? I didn't want to complain about my good fortune to have a good eater, but I didn't feel that anyone else really understood that feeding a big baby is not the same as feeding a regular-sized one. Even now, I watch longingly as normal babies nurse for fifteen minutes and then snooze for a few hours. It is a schedule I never experienced. (Alexander would only spare himself thirty minutes at a time for sleeping. He had a tight eating schedule to keep.) As Xander grew and grew and grew and grew and grew, I watched the dishes pile up and clean laundry re-wrinkle in its mound in the bedroom and the dust settle on the mantel (and on me, sitting inert beneath my baby and Boppy) and I wondered what was wrong with me. Other new moms did laundry and cooked dinner and went to the gym and began cutesy new mom hobbies like crocheting and I was sitting amidst chaos. Because Alexander was normal to me, I thought everyone spent as much time feeding their children as I did and I couldn't imagine how they fit in other activities. I felt lazy. I felt like a failure. I felt like an idiot.

Even now, when other moms toss bits of lunch meat and cheese at their kids and call it lunch, I am making Alexander an entire hot turkey and cheese with spinach plus a banana plus a yogurt plus some Goldfish plus a pile of green beans plus some of last night's dinner. . .It take quite a bit of planning and effort. Do I mind? No. Is it a challenge to feed a big baby? Yes, absolutely. Does anyone want to hear about it? I do. If you are feeding your baby who just can't be satisfied because he is committed to outgrowing his clothes every three weeks, you aren't crazy. You aren't lazy or stupid or a failure. You are a mom of a big baby and you have a big job.

Jerry Jones, please don't draw up that NFL contract for my fifteen-month-old just yet.

Each time Xander visits the doctor, he gets shots and an updated round of jaw-dropping stats. At one year, for example, he was almost a pound per inch: 33 pounds and 33.25 inches. Dutiful parent that I am, I diligently publicize Alexander's growth. After all, in parenting there is little tangible measure of success, so I'm not going to shy away from proof that I have, if nothing else, been able to keep my son fed. (No small task, by the way.) Xander's renewed height and weight numbers invariably bring a round of football references: "Get that boy a football!" "Tell the Cowboys to get him a locker!" "He'll be one heck of a linebacker." You get the idea.

For the record, I do not disdain these comments. They are logical. Practical, even. Alexander is big. In our world, bigness is seen as a gift, a positive attribute--especially for boys. Most people then, seek a good use for that big size, the way a one might try to find an outlet for a child particularly gifted at drawing or dance. If a person has a particular talent, we collectively reason, why not encourage its application?

Moreover, size is the one uncontrollable factor necessary for sports success. Certainly, being a star quarterback takes talent and hard work. But those two features work in tandem and one helps to maximize the other. Haven't we all seen the athlete (or scholar for that matter) who worked hard but just didn't have the natural skill to be top notch? Or perhaps more frustrating, most of us are familiar with the sports phenom with enviable inherent abilities who can't ever seem to be bothered with conditioning or learning strategy? (You know this type; the Cowboys love to draft him.) Size is the one feature that a person has or doesn't. No amount of wishing is going to make a basketball-crazy boy 6'5" instead of 5'2". The world is full of frustrated forwards and wide receivers who were never tall enough to truly compete in their respective sports. (Trust me, as a tall person I've met them all. As a girl, I avoid the pressure to play foorball, but I think I personally disappointed at least three dozen strangers when I told them that no, no, I do not play basketball. "But you're tall!" they all say in disbelief, as if height were the only requirement. I can't run and dribble simultaneously; the ball bounces off my foot and ricochets across the gym. Trust me, you do not want me on your team. Plus, I hate contact sports. My own sweat is enough. I don't want to rub all over other people's. Ew.)


What makes me nervous is the presumptiveness and prematurity of the football comments. I can't even begin to recount the number of dads who have less than subtly asked where Alexander will be going to high school, I suppose to figure out if he will be their sons' teammate or rival. As if nothing will change in the thirteen years between this moment and high school: no one will move or discover a love of golf or musical theatre.

Big Baby Truism #5: Don't athletically pigeon-hole your child.

Alexander is an individual with his own interests, talents, and ambitions. Since he's barely verbal, I've only begun to discover what most of these are. Still, I respect that he may share my opinion about contact sports. . .or that he may aspire to be the next Michael Jordan. (And no, that title does not belong to Lebron. Please.) The difference between me and the mom at the park teaching her one-and-a-half-year-old "Down, set, hut!" (seriously) is that I am leaving Xander's options open. Do I believe children should experience sports? Absolutely. Early exposure to sports allows children to develop an interest in the sport of their choice and teaches lessons about teamwork, perseverance, and being a good winner and loser. I will without a doubt sign Xander up for sports when he is old enough. But I will let him sign up for any sport he wants to try. I will not ever tell him his size is "wasted" if he picks a sport in which height is less advantageous. Alexander's size is certainly an integral part of his identity, but it doesn't have to define his self-image or his extracurricular choices. Will the road of popularity be hard if he is a big boy with no interest in athletics? Yes. Will I support him on that road if he takes it? Without question. I'm his mother not his manager. Any parent who lets their own preconceptions or fantasies dictate what a child does (or doesn't do) in sports is abdicating his or her responsibility. A child's interests are his own and deserve to be nurtured; he is not a puppet for vicarious sports experiences or a pawn in societal suppositions about gender, size, and sports. He is your child. For me, he is Alexander, who may play football or basketball or both. Who may love golf or cross country or playing the guitar. Who will have talents and abilities that are about his brain and his insights and not at all about how big he is or isn't.

When all of those too-short wannabe basketball drop-outs reacted with true offense (not defense ha ha) when I told them I did not in fact participate in their sport of choice, I usually tried to temper their disappointment by offering, "But I row." Crew is another sport in which height is often an advantage. But either because of their own ignorance about the sport or out of tunnel-vision in regard to basketball, this addendum never seemed to make any difference, and that fact frustrated me more than the original assumption that my height doomed me to play center on some hapless team. Why? Because it left no room for me, for my ideas, for the simple fact that I loved crew and deplored basketball. "I'm not just a 5'10" effigy!" I wanted to explain. "I'm not just a hunk of tall high school girl. I'm Anna, and I row. I also write stories and babysit." But that didn't matter then, and it won't matter to the same sorts of people who will approach Alexander. The good news is that I can arm him with the confidence to take these remarks for what they are--nonesense that says more about the speaker than the audience.

And the dirty little secret that no one ever mentions is that Xander's size will hold him back from certain dreams. We don't like to acknowledge this reality since height is considered unequivocally good, but let's get real, folks: very little in this world is unequivocally good. I took ballet for ten years. I was really dang good. I had a high arch and excellent pointe and strong legs. (I was a little sway-backed, but Miss Bess tapped me on the behind enough for me to mostly keep my hips tucked under my shoulders.) Yet I was never destined for ballet greatness, despite my commitment and discipline. The truth began to dawn on me when my teacher had me demonstrate leaps across the room, telling the other girls, "Anna is the biggest girl here and she lands silently, not like an elephant like all of you." The truth cemented in my cerebellum when I took a good look at the male ballet dancers--the ones who lift ballerinas. I was taller (and likely heavier) than all of them. Not a single one would ever be stepping up to lift me, no matter how lovely my arabesque. Alexander is unlikely to succeed as a gymnast. Although I guess if he wanted to do ballet, he could lift some poor, enormous ballerina and make her dreams come true.

The Pope has a Pope-mobile, but we have a Poop-mobile.

The "Infant Sleep" section at Barnes & Noble resembles some unmentioned circle of Hell. (Dante, clearly, did not have children.) The aisle is patrolled by slow-moving, irritable zombies who are not so much dangerous as troublesome. They tend to get in the way of quicker-moving folks (who are only using this aisle as a cut-through to the section on homemade probiotic smoothies) and seem dazed and discombobulated my any muttered "excuse me" thrown in their direction. These seemingly half-living entities wear the dark circles of enforced wakefulness under their eyes; they may not have brushed their hair today or yesterday for that matter. Most alarming of all, someone has entrusted babies to these people; the little ones can be seen riding around in strollers, peacefully asleep.


Generally, these zombies are called "parents" and they have come to this aisle for relief, as though it were the fountain of youth or the Oracle at Delphi. They seek answers. They seek truth. What oh what, besides daylight and a moving car, can induce their babies to sleep?

Is there any more harrowing trial of parenthood than sleep derivation? Any parent can understand how keeping a human being awake for too long is a kind of a torture. In fact, if babies were subject to the Geneva Convention, they would be in big trouble for crimes against humanity. But in their disguise of cuteness and innocence and dependence, we let these babies toy with our sleep. In fact, parents are at their infants' total mercy; they sleep when Baby says they can.

Knowledge of the kind to be gained from this particular aisle of the bookstore seems vital. An ocean's worth of ink has been spilled on the subject of getting Baby to sleep. While the basic facts remain the same (both babies and parents need to sleep, as it turns out), different researchers have different styles for accomplishing this goal. Pretty  much any parent can find an author willing to endorse and explain a sleep strategy that aligns with the indivdual's parenting philosophy: cry it out, sleep train, co-sleep. . .the list goes on. Common and successful soothing mechanisms are discussed, chapters are spent on common sleep problems and bad habits. Many books even have what amounts to a troubleshooting sections, eerily mirroring the manual that parents are always told babies don't have. (Don't worry; any parenting book that attempts to be a manual for babies is always slightly off, as if the manufactuer sent you the instructions for the right product but the wrong model; the information is about the Alpha Gamma 2345 and you have the Beta Beta 1.)

Here is one problem no one covers: pooping and eating. Multiple authors with divergent sleeping philosophies (and let's be serious, I could do graudate-level research in this seemingly narow field, the writings are so prolific) have assured me that sleeping and eating are not related in the older infant, that being able to sleep through the night (defined as six hours, by the way, which is clearly a number decided upon by an insomniac) is a developmental accomplishment, not a matter of stomach size or appetite.

I say bullshit. More accurately, I say baby shit. A normal baby who eats a normal amount of food in most cases eliminates in a normal fashion: reasonable amounts at reasonable increments. A big baby, like my son, eats an unholy amount of food. He out-eats me at fourteen months of age. He has a much smaller body and, more importantly, a significantly shorter digestive tract. Can you, Dr. Ferber, Kim West, or Professor HappiestBabyontheBlock, fall asleep with a bowel full of poo? Because guess what? My adorable, sweet, perfect little baby poops like it's his job. In fact, if someone paid us for the volume of his output at the for-ounce price of gold, he'd be on his way to an Ivy League preschool. He blows out his diaper multiple times a day. He, memorably, pooped so exhaustively in his car seat that we all needed a change of clothes, a bath, an entire pack of wipes, and a hose. He can't nap because he has to poop. He wakes up at night full of farts. What do I do for a baby who eats so much that pooping keeps him awake?

Shockingly, no one sleep book spends a chapter or even a sentence on this topic. When bowel movements are mentioned at all, only problems are brought up. The underlying assumption is that if excrement is interfering with sleep, there must be a problem.

Well, my "problem" is that my almost-35-pound one-year-old can eat two pieces of pizza and fifteen ounces of baby food in a sitting. My "problem" is that he will eat one yogurt cup, scream for another, and then, as if those were merely appetizers, demolish two adult servings of macaroni and cheese. These "problems" are facts of my every day life. And they make for a lot of poop.

Baby Truism #4: Big babies have unique problems. . .and advice is scarce.

What do I do to help my son sleep? By all accounts, he should sleep through the night at his age. He is developmentally capable. If his discontent during these middle-of-the-night awakening is any indicator,  he'd like to sleep without interruption. What solution is there short of a nightly pre-bed enema? (Please, lord of sleep, nooooo!)

This is the sentence in which I give my wise and tested answer. I don't have one. Usually I like to write about parenting experiences that I have considered, digested (ha ha), and resolved in some way. I don't have this one figured out. As I've said, I'm a rule-follower, and if any book offered help for my dilemma, I'd put it into action, step by step. (An awful TV show, by the way.) I'd test it out and report back. As it is, I'm at a loss. I hate to say that, because I also enjoy being succesful at what I do. I especially deplore magazine and newspaper articles that announce a problem specificaly for the purpose of announcing it, not offering any meaningful context or purpose. Spaghetti is yummy! Just thought you should know!

If I have any wisdom at this juncture, it's that no experience is as humbling for a goal-oriented, capable person as parenthood. There are seldom right answers. Most actions do not have a direct and measurable outcome. (Why else do parents worry that they are causing their children lasting damage and lining some predatory therapist's silken pockets?) Children do not offer reliable feedback, often preferring immediate and irresponsible parenting decisions to forward-looking, thoughtful ones.

So for the foreseeable future I will be changing poopy diapers 'round the clock and swabbing blow-outs out of car seats and my son's arm pits. (Oh, the glamor of parenthood.) I will continue taking the pediatrician's advice to "just keep feeding him" because his appetite and growth curve defy prediction and convention. Even though the sleep experts swear that he is too old for night feedings and that it is my fault he is a "trained night sleeper," I will continue nursing him at 3:30 in the morning when he needs it because I know when my son is hungry and he doesn't know that he is "supposed to" make it until six a.m. Normal babies eat breakfast at normal times. Big babies get hungry at times that defy expectation and ideal sleep patterns.

If I ever write a book on big babies and sleeping, it will be brief. In fact, I will likely have to credit our (very wise, very patient) pediatrican for the first two:

An early excerpt from His Poop Hit the Curtains: Sleep and the Big Baby:

1. Just keep feeding him.
2. Buy livestock.
3. Purchase stock in Gerber, Beech Nut, or your food supplier of choice.
4. Forget about sleeping.

In the end, baby sleep books offer valuable tips, but parents don't seek them out for those tidbits that can also be found on Yahoo! Answers. Those books call to us with the siren song of sleep, promising what we want most of all: rest. Here is a truism for all parents, regardless of the size of their babes: even when babies "sleep through the night," they really don't. Neither will you. For a long time.

Sorry.

Special feature: What is "big"?

When I was pregnant, I watched A Baby Story with fervor bordering on obsession. My interest was mostly research-based: I learned of all the different events and difficulties that can accompany labor and send a woman's "birth plan" (a misnomer if not an oxymoron) ricocheting in a new, unexpected direction. I observed how women behaved while in labor and made promises to myself about what I would and would not do when my turn came. (As arrogant and foolish as it was to judge some of these women without having been in their shoes. . .er, stirrups, I can honestly report that I made good on all of these promises. I did not hit anyone, screech like something out of The Exorcist, or tell Brian that I hated him.) I'll admit, I also enjoyed the show as a sort of confidence boost: no matter how terribly my labor went, at least I wouldn't cope as badly as that woman did. Ah, schadenfreude.

There was one episode, however, that came back to me vividly after Xander was born and his true, gargantuan size revealed. An excited new dad runs out to the waiting room to announce the happy news of his son's birth to waiting family, and delivers the news in approximately these words: ". . .and he's seven pounds three ounces--a big boy!" A big boy?! Perhaps if you are from a family of jockeys or gymnasts seven three qualifies as big. But in the larger world with the rest of us, big, small and in between, seven three is pretty average. Sorry, Dad.

I readily admit that size is relative, or, more accurately, that perceptions of size are relative. (That baby was seven pounds three ounces no matter how you sliced it (like Solomon? Poor choice of words, Anna), but if that baby is perceived as big or small depends on a lot on who is doing the perceiving.) Most immediately, size and our perception depends a lot on the baby's mom; an eight-pound baby is huge for a very petite woman to deliver but not so noteworthy for a mom who's 6'1". Once baby is out in the world, I know that "big" still operates on a sliding scale calibrated by past experience. In the interest of clarity on my blog, though, I would like to assert some objective standards for "big."

Most specifically, when I say "big," I mean HUGE. I mean a baby who is off the charts, whose plotted height and weight float like a constellation above the smooth curve of normal babies. These babies interest me because they experience  the dilemmas and joys of abnormal size most acutely. Of course, I also favor these babies because their experience mirrors my own. Naturally, I am partial to these big babies because I have one. Before any moms get their prefolds in a bunch, I am in no way claiming that big babies are better, only that I have a soft spot for them because I understand their journey. I feel fondly for big babies the same way I do for any little boy close to my son's age, or a child with blue eyes or dimples; it is because they remind me of my precious little one.

In a broader sense, I think many of the "truisms" I relate here are true for any larger-than-average baby. Anytime you start skidding down the far slope of the bell curve, you will experience what life is like outside the majority. A 70th percentile baby may not run up against all of the issues I discuss here, but certainly some of them will be familiar. Any time I can shed some light on what seems like a frustrating or exclusionary childhood experience ("What do you mean I can't play on the playplace?" Oh my heavens, someone needs to pay for my therapy), I'm happy to have offered some advice or at least the solace of camaraderie: you are big, but you are not big and alone.


The one thing I do not mean by "big" is "overweight" or "obese." I know that childhood obesity is a growing and troubling problem in our country, and while I feel for those families struggling with it, I am afraid I can't offer much help. The sort of embarrassment and teasing that accompanies being taller than average is worlds different from the harassment and bullying that overweight children endure. I have no experience in the latter arena and the issue is serious enough that I'm not even sure I'd feel comfortable dealing with it. Obesity is life-threatening and requires medical intervention. Being tall or off-the-charts is not a health problem. It is not fixable (nor should it be) and therefore children must learn to cope with and accept it. Also, being "big" in the sense of tall and strong has decided advantages, a light-at-the-end of the tunnel promise that kids being teased for their weight can't hold on to for reassurance.

I suppose I have to take issue with my own choice of terminology. Growing up, I hated being called "big." I felt it was a euphemism for "fat." In fact, as a mid-elementary school student, I thought that I had been overly chubby as a toddler and preschooler because everyone commented on how "big" I was. Imagine my surprise and confusion when a careful perusal of pictures of me romping in the pool at age four revealed that I was actually slim and trim. What on earth had those people been talking about? Even in high school, when adults would comment, "Oh, you're a big girl," I would usually hasten to correct them. "You mean tall?" I would suggest.

I knew "tall" didn't cover it; tall refers to height, and as we all know from observing the many sizes and shapes of people around us, some tall people are willowy or gangly and others are sturdily built, strapping, solid without being "fat" or overweight. In other words, they are. . .big. Even though I chafed at the term, I have to confess that I don't have a better one to describe those people simply built on a different scale. My son isn't just tall. He's big. When he stands beside other children his age, yes, he stands a head or more above them, but he's also broader across the shoulders, thicker through the chest, and sturdier in his arms and legs. He looks as though he rolled off the Nordic baby factory's conveyor belt, assembled to specs vastly different from those used in other locales. (Is the Nordic baby factory. . .Ikea?)

So larger-than-average babies, I call you big. Wear the mantle proudly (though it's likely too small) and get used to it: "big" will be the first word out of many people's mouths when they meet you. The world was not made to accomodate your size, but you also have some decided advantages. My sister often bemoans the world is not built for left-handed people and big babies can identify; the world wasn't made for them either. But I discovered early on that doing and being what people expected was dull and unfulfilling. Being big is unexpected and sets you on the path for doing different, unexpected, exciting, and interesting things.

All while wearing pants that are too short.