my fourth case of tonsillitis that winter, the doctor told me that there was nothing wrong with my throat and that my only problem was that I needed to lose 60 pounds.

Because clearly, your butt goes and sends little invader germs to attack your throat! To make it too painful to eat! Or something.

I have discovered of myself that I can look skeletally ill within the range of BMI normal for my height. That wasn't even borderline; it was I think smack in the middle of the normal range, and I was like, Hello! Ribcage = xylophone! That shit ain't right!

Talking to doctors about my cholesterol is always fun. "I'm vegetarian. I don't eat eggs. I don't eat much cheese. When I do drink milk, it's skim. You're going to tell me my cholesterol is 275 because of my diet? Really?" Usually, at that point, they'll try to convince me to eat fish.

I have discovered of myself that I can look skeletally ill within the range of BMI normal for my height. That wasn't even borderline; it was I think smack in the middle of the normal range, and I was like, Hello! Ribcage = xylophone! That shit ain't right!

Me too! I'm within .5 of being in the "overweight" category, and I'm maybe 2 pounds off of my proper weight. If I lost 10 pounds, which still puts me in the upper range of the BMI, I would look nigh unto death. Pfeh.

I think I've told this story before, but I really enjoy the vast range of human physicality. I was on the bus one summer and a tiny bird-boned Asian woman got on - maybe 5 foot, size 00 jeans, wrists like my hearty 4 year old's kind of person - and then two members of the women's basketball team, one white, one black, both easily 6'2 or 3, big and broad-shouldered and muscular and probably shopping for shoes at a specialty store kind of people, and yet all of us, humans in our natural form. So neat!

Um, is crawling around inside the cave sticking things in their mouths any safer? Or are we assuming that all cave-mommies were hard-core babywearers who never let the little ones out of their sight? (Now imagining a prehistoric Park Slope full of custom mamoth-print slings...)

I would assume that a cave would be safer because there would be less vegitative stuff. Lots of plants are not so good for the eating! There would be dirt and what not, but the rocks might be less potentially poisonous than plants might be?

Noah is on his own growth chart! I mean, he's not even ON the chart, which is sort of neat. They plot points and just look to see that he is growing in a sort of curve pattern with no big dips or leaps.

And he was supplemented, even his breastmilk was fortified with formula. But that's because his lungs used more energy to breath than the average baby.

And poor Gracie. Barely 13 lbs.

Also, yeah, what Jess said about breastfed babies. Pediatricians are supposed to have separate growth charts for BF babies, but they very frequently don't. And then you get the happy fun MUST START SUPPLEMENTING NOW pressure. Ugh.

The WHO orgs charts are cool because they are based on world wwide breastfed statistics.

I was talking to my friend Darlene who has has 14 month old. SShe said her kid was in the 15th percentile. And I was like, "Darlene, I'm 5'1" and taller than you are! And I outweigh you by 50 lbs. Of course your kidlet is smaller."

The percentiles are an average of babies. It's not like if you are in the 95% that you have a better baby. Just a bigger one.

Point taken. However, would it be a news item with nutritionists, doctors, etc., weighing in on the mother's failure as a mother?

A news item? probably not. But you do have doctors and nutritionists who weigh in on all the time with the failure to thrive thing.

To clarify...

The percentiles are an average of babies. It's not like if you are in the 95% that you have a better baby. Just a bigger one.

What I mean is that it's not like a given percentile is a grade. It's not like, "OH! 100th percentile! I have a better baby!" which is what I sometimes hear on the playground.

Noah's in the 95th percentile for hours of sleep. And I'm super happy about that because I like to sleep and I sleep a lot, but also when baby sleeps I can get stuff done, like dishes, cooking, laundry. But that extra sleep doesn't make him a superior baby.

However, would it be a news item with nutritionists, doctors, etc., weighing in on the mother's failure as a mother?

Skinny babies don't make the news as often as fat toddlers, but yeah, a "failure to thrive" diagnosis is generally considered to be the mother's fault. (If anyone knows of anything developmental that's NOT generally considered to be the mother's fault, please let me know so I can blame DH for it. Thanks!)

So on the one hand, you have healthy (but small) breastfed babies having supplements pushed on them, children who are outside the "normal" range being offered help getting their weight down, some parents starving toddlers because they don't want the kids to be "obese" ... I think what we have is an epidemic of stupidity.

Pretty much! To vastly overgeneralize, up to about 24 months of age, babies are supposed to gain weight as fast as they can, the more the better. Gain gain gain! Whole milk only! Hell, drink heavy cream! Then at 2 years old, they stop being babies, turn into kids, at which point the parent's only concern should be making sure they don't become obese. It's a completely hideous double standard which I deal with by cheerfully ignoring, feeding Dylan whatever I want and letting him eat as much as he feels like.

Noah is on his own growth chart! I mean, he's not even ON the chart, which is sort of neat. They plot points and just look to see that he is growing in a sort of curve pattern with no big dips or leaps.

Lillian's doctors just care that there's a curve. She flattened out at one point (but it was AFTER we'd all had the rotovirus and a full month of bad colds), which worried them, but soon she was trending slowly upward once more.

It's not like, "OH! 100th percentile! I have a better baby!" which is what I sometimes hear on the playground.

Ha! Seriously? Because that sounds like something Stephen Colbert would say.

What I mean is that it's not like a given percentile is a grade. It's not like, "OH! 100th percentile! I have a better baby!" which is what I sometimes hear on the playground.

I know at least two mothers who got really concerned because their toddler daughters were at the 100th percentile for weight. These little girls were both also at the 100th percentile height -- one was a skinny kid, the other was kind of roundish the way that toddlers sometimes are -- but "100th percentile for weight" totally set off some, "OMG! I have a fat kid!" bells for them.