The kids got weighed and measured today. Cooper weighs 24 lbs., 9 oz. and is 30 4/8 (that's what she wrote down) inches long. He's nice and chunky - between the 75th and 80th percentiles, medically speaking. In fact we cannot take hand-me-down's from Landon who is five months older than him. Soon, Landon may start getting hand-me-downs from Cooper. Both boys are built like their mom.

Abby also seems to be built like her mother (and most of that side of the family.) She weighs 44 lbs. and is 3 ft. 6 inches tall. Medically speaking, she's between the 90th and 95th percentiles. Two things kind of bugged be about that. First of all, my daughter is over half my height. Yikes. Soon, she'll be borrowing my clothes.

The second one bothered me more. The nurse who talked to us afterward (not the nurse we usually see) called her "overweight." This medical "professional" actually called my four year old daughter OVERWEIGHT. I saw a four year old on Dr. Phil a few weeks ago who was overweight. She weighed something like 85 lbs. She is overweight. Her mother said, "I can't get her to eat anything but cookies and drink Coke." Hello? Who's running this house? Abby is not overweight. She has "Kondrup bones." It's my explanation for why my actual weight is higher than you would suspect by looking at me.

And anyway, why would you call a CHILD overweight? Did the nurse think she was deaf? Let's go ahead and start my daughter on a path of self-doubt. It wasn't enough that for the first three years of her life 95% of the people who talked to her called her a boy. We finally get enough hair on her head to put that question to rest and people start acting like she should be on the Atkin's Diet.

I love my daughter. She is the most beautiful girl God has ever created. She is not fat. She loves vegetables and fruit and doesn't eat a bunch of cookies and candy. She is active and brilliantly smart. And I hate that before our children - especially our girls - can understand the concept of weight, a decision is made to label and title them according to the reading on a scale. I do not ever want my daughter to believe that her worth comes from being the same dress size as another girl, or having the same hair style as another girl or having a boyfriend when another girl does. I'm not positive on how to avoid it, but I will start by reminding her each and every day that she is just the way God wants her to be.

Sometimes I'll say to her, "How'd you get so cute?"
She'll reply, "God made me this way."
I'll answer, "Well, stop."
She says, "I can't."

I hope she never doubts that.