It finally happened; after months of hovering just under my height—and countless mornings of not-so-subtly sidling up to me and comparing our stature—this morning Monkey came downstairs and I was struck speechless for a moment.
“Holy crap,” I finally managed. I turned to Otto. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing here? Isn’t he, like, an inch or maybe TWO taller than when he went to bed last night??”
Otto concurred as Monkey grinned and bounced by my side, using one hand to supposedly feel the plane from the top of his head to over the top of mine (though he was a bit slanted, and we had to point out that no, he’s not a foot taller than me… yet). Today was a long-awaited triumph for him, and reminder 749 to me that my darling boy is a late bloomer. He’s no longer the smallest kid in the class as he was for so long, but neither has he hit anywhere close to what I assume his eventual height will be. (People love to gently tell me that maybe he’s just going to be short. His dad is really tall; I think he’s just on his own growth curve right now, y’know?)
That brought me back to thinking about all of the joys of asynchronous development, so I wrote about it over at Alpha Mom, because the only thing more fun that trying to figure out a teenager is trying to figure out a teenager who is both ahead and behind.
Isn’t it great that they don’t need long pants until October? I’m giving my 13yo son growth deadlines. He can get taller til mid October. His feet can grow until two weeks before the piano recital or band concert. After those dates he needs to hold off for a bit. Like until he can wear shorts again in March or April!
My son has a lot of the same challenges as Monkey, albeit in a lesser form. This post really struck home, though, as my 13 y/o is very bright, but also very young for his age and it causes him problems sometimes.
Waiting to see when my boys hit their growth spurts. I think they’re both convinced it’s not going to happen.
Same story here except we sent the kid to band camp and he came back an inch taller….and an inch taller than me.
I had a friend who had a growth spurt as a senior in high school. I bet your son will also! :)
I’m 5’10” and it was a sad blow for me to realize that I am going to be the shortest person in my family. My husband and my two daughters are taller than me, and my 11-year-old son is one his way.
Sigh.
I’m 5’1″…and it’s possible that neither of my kids will end up taller than me. That’s not an easy thing to come to grips with. My Em has topped out at 4′ 10.5″ at almost 17, but being a short girl is one thing. N is at around 4′ 8″ at 13 years of age. The hope is that he’s going to be delayed in physical development just like he is in other developmental areas, and that he’ll have some serious growth spurts later in his adolescence; I can only hope so. Autism is one thing, but being a short man? It’s rough out there for men who don’t ‘measure up.’ Fingers crossed!
A young friend of mine actually had his last growth spurt after he graduated from high school. Really surprised a lot of people when he went to their 5-yr reunion.
My niece recently hit the point where she’s taller than both her mom and me. She was so proud of herself.
Now you’ll have to stand on a chair to yell at your kids properly. :-)
Don’t forget to check his shoes. I found that my son went from an 8 to a size 11 in what seemed like two months. And he has sensory issues so he hates new shoes, but he happened to complain for half a second and I was right on it.
Then I was horrified when we got him the right size shoe.
Whoops.
I remember my daughter’s friends coming over and telling my son to “Stop growing already!” He thought it was hilarious to be taller than all the girls – and taller than his mother.
I was called shorty in middle school. I graduated HS at 17 and kept growing afterwards, and now I’m about 6’4″. People don’t call me shorty now for sure. Although my feet are still big for my height.
Word of warning – after I was taller than my mother, I called her “Short Person” as a nickname for several years. But she knew it was kind of a joke between us, since she was about 5’8″ so definitely not that short.
Yay Monkey. I’m going to have to look up to / at him.