Tom, Rowan and I made an unplanned drive to Georgia this weekend because Grammies (Great-Grammies to Rowan) wasn't feeling too well. She did have to go into the hospital Monday morning after visiting her doctor, but we arrived in time for her to spend a fun Sunday afternoon with Rowan. She made quick improvements and will go home from the hospital in a few days. With things piling up at home, we couldn't stay any longer so we headed back home and arrived late last evening. This story will be short because I'm truly in dig-out-of-the-backlog mode after being away from email and work, but I just had to tell it!
We stopped at a travel plaza to stretch our legs and give Rowan a diaper change. I took him in to the ladies' room where the changing table was, and two of the cleaning ladies were in there wiping the mirrors. Rowan loves looking at people in mirrors, and I stood him up on the changing table so he could charm these two ladies for a moment (after staring at the back glass of the minivan for 6 hours, he deserved a little recreation). The ladies were immediately smitten (of course), and came over to admire him. One asked how old he was. I said almost 8 months. She said, "Wow, he makes my 9-month-old look huge!" And the other lady said, "Well, this baby is definitely small for 8 months." Small? My baby? Well, I had to stop and think about it. He definitely is not small, but I realized he is also no longer particularly large for his age. The addition of solid foods, and greater physical activity on Rowan's part, have seen a slowdown in the frantic pace of growth. He's actually still wearing all his 9-month clothes, after zooming through the 6-month stage. We've got some 12-month sleepers that fit fine, but the 9-month sleepers are still perfectly wearable too. Needless to say we're waiting until the last possible minute to buy Spring clothes, just to see what this baby is going to do!