Retro Wednesday: Could That Be Our Child?

Niles and I are not known for our height. We are both short--always have been. Everyone in my family is short. Niles is the short one in his family (much to his dismay.) So it has been a surprise for both of us to have tall children. The girls, anyway. We fear that Jet is going to hate it, but he is going to be short. It's too early to tell with Atom. Jumble, at almost 15 years, has long-since passed my humble 5'4" height (which is actually a lot taller than I thought I'd ever be.) A recent tallest to shortest line-up of all the YW in our ward found Jumble in about the #5 spot (taller than most of the Laurels, even.) Then there is Minnie. She is about to turn 12 years old and a recent check showed that she is maybe a millimeter shorter than me now. Her short parents find this incredible. Niles and I both were always the shortest kid in our school classes--every year. When the time came for class photos, we always knew our place--front row on the end. I don't have copies of any of Nile's class photos but here are a few of mine:

Kindergarten:

That's me in the blue dress--front row, right end.

1st grade:

That's me in the light blue dress with the flower on the pocket--front row on the left end

2nd Grade:

That's me in the green dress--front row on the left end

See what I mean?

I got really tired of other girls in my class exclaiming, "You are so tiny!" "You are sooo cute!" as they patted me on the head. I found it quite demeaning--like they forgot that my brain and age were not 2-3 years younger as well as my body size. Don't even get me started about when the song "Short People" came out when I was in 4th grade. Niles endured similar insulting situations related to his lack of height.

So imagine our surprise and pleasure when we attended Minnie's kindergarten Christmas program:

That's Minnie--that TALL girl sticking out on the BACK ROW (close to center of the photo)!!

Here's a close-up photo of her after the program so you can see how cute she was!

I don't think Niles and I even noticed what the program was about. We were so amazed and astounded that our child was on the BACK ROW--the elusive BACK ROW that we had always dreamed about being on but knew we would never make it to. We would have thought it was an absolute miracle to even make it onto the 2nd row. It never happened--for either of us. Could that be our child on the BACK ROW?! We were both practically in tears--our child was on the BACK ROW! So it has been a strange and wonderful thing to have tall girls.

When I was turning twelve, I felt intimidated by the beehives that were just a year older. There was a strange phenomenon in that ward--even my mom commented on it. All of the girls a year older than me hit their growth spurt early--and looked like they were 14 or 15 by the time they turned twelve. Then there was me--who was mistaken for a 12-year-old at the age of twenty (I'm not exaggerating!) I used to look up (literally) at those girls in awe--wondering how they managed to get so tall and look so old so soon. I felt like a 6-year-old next to them. It was hard not to feel inferior. So it is somewhat satisfying to look at my 11-year-old daughter and see how she towers over most of the girls her age and looks at least 2 years older, too. I'm glad she doesn't have to enter YW in a few weeks with everyone exclaiming that they can't believe she's twelve (the polite way of saying that they thought you were only 6 because your body is roughly the size and shape of the girls in the CTR 6 class.) That was my experience. It's strange to think that if I were 12 now, my daughter would be one of those that I would be looking "up" at with envy. And the best thing is that she is happy with where she is at.