Got Me a Big 'un

Yesterday Cora was weighed and measured. She is one ounce shy of being 20 pounds (woof!) and is 30 inches long. That's right, I said 30 inches.

This officially puts her above the 95th percentile for height at her age (9 months), and the nutritionist said she was "on par with a 13 or 14 month old."

And yes, for those of you doing the math, that does make her almost half my height. My daughter has achieved in only nine months almost half of what it's taken me my whole life to reach.

Secretly, I'm pleased. I've always wanted to be taller (I say I'm a 5'9" girl trapped in a 5'5" body), and as I told Coleman, I think it's healthy to live out your dreams through your children as long as it's something over which they have absolutely no control! I'm not forcing her to become skilled at something I had wanted to do or excel in a sport I never played - but hey, if she's tall, she's tall, and I can watch her save all the money I've spent having pants hemmed!

As for her weight, she has dropped down into the 75th percentile-range, but apparently this is largely due to two factors:

1) She is crawling all over the place, pulling up, attempting to stand up, and burning off a lot of calories in all of this activity.

2) The current growth chart is skewed to track formula fed babies. As the nutritionist said, it ought to be set for breastfed babies, making this the norm, and then comparing formula fed babies to that chart, but it's not. At least not right now. However, she said that the effect of this is that around 9 months, breastfed babies appear to take a dive, weight-wise, but are actually still right on track for growth.

So, be not alarmed that my chunky monkey has dropped from 90th to 75th percentile for weight. She's looking a little skinny these days, but she's healthy.