Graham Is Not A Brick

I get emails updates about my baby every week from two different baby websites. You know, the kind of emails that told me what was going on each week in pregnancy. I always thought it was funny that they would compare his size to a fruit or vegetable, and not always a baby-shaped fruit or vegetable. One week Graham was a zucchini, another week he was not just a tomato, but an heirloom tomato. Nathan and I wondered why it had to be non-processed foods, or foods at all. Why couldn't he be the size of a small transistor radio that week? Or maybe a chapter book? A bottle of Bath & Body Works hand sanitizer?

 
Now the emails are telling me about Graham's development, or at least how it should be. Except I'm confused, because according to one, Graham has the developmental trajectory of a brick. According to the other, he's about halfway to a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. So I suppose it's a good thing that he falls somewhere between the two.

Not my son Graham

So many baby resources talk about how it may be tempting to fib about your baby sleeping through the night in an effort to artificially inflate his reputation at play group. This has never been tempting for me. I don't want the bragging rights, I want the pity! Graham still wakes up three times a night to eat, sometimes to just have a good wiggle, other times to discuss the ideas he has about our nation's foreign policy, or else to voice his concerns about the fact that of his mere two pairs of shorts, one is tri-color desert camouflage and therefore goes with nothing except a plain white onesie--this ensemble makes him look decidedly like a hickish baby, which Graham definitely isn't. Because, come on, we don't even have a backyard for him to hunt in!

The jacket tempers the hick baby-ness.

Why don't the emails tell me how big Graham is anymore? How am I supposed to know what fruit he resembles most? Thank goodness for Google. Now I know that Graham weighs as much as a sixteen pound pumpkin, and he is the size (minus the tail) and weight of an adult male red panda (which is a much cooler animal than the grayscale panda).