Off the Charts?

After Devoted Wife returned from taking Baby Kate to her 3-month checkup and reported to me that Kate was in the 50th percentile for weight, I thought something wasn't quite right. After all, she had been "in the 50th percentile" at her one-month checkup and again at her two-month checkup. How was it possible that each time she was exactly in the 50th percentile? Not 48th or 53rd, but in the 50th. Something is odd, I assured Devoted Wife. I suspected intellectual laziness on the part of the nurse.

So I jumped on Google and located a standard height/weight chart for infant girls. Click on the chart to see the detail.

Turns out that there isn't a high degree of variability in a three-month-old baby's length or weight. And unless you use a straight-edge, a protractor and a magnifying glass, when you check out the point on this chart where the 3-month line intersects the 12 lb. 2 oz. (Kate's current weight) line , it sure looks like the 50th percentile to me.

Height wise (can you really call it height when she can't stand up by herself?), she seems to be getting quite a bit taller. At two months she was in about the 90th percentile for height (length), and at this checkup the nurse said she was "off the charts." Again, consulting the chart I see that her 25.5 inches puts her above the 95th percentile, which is the highest percentile featured on the chart, but that the difference between 95th and 50th percentiles is only a couple of inches. So the difference between being average height and being freakishly tall for her age may simply have to do with whether she is doing her famous "stiff as a board" trick while the doctor is trying to get a measurement (she usually just does it when we're trying to put her in her car seat). Judging by how well she holds still when we ask her to, I can see that this is not an exact science.

So while the experts tell us that you can't really get much of a sense for a child's potential adult height until her or she is at least 4 years old, I'm still thinking Kate may be one of the first in my family to have a shot at a basketball career. Good thing that she appears to have gotten Devoted Wife's genes in the height department.

While we haven't eliminated the swimming workouts, we have added some low post workouts designed to help her develop the footwork she'll need to excel in the paint. I can already tell that with her upper-body strength, no one is going to push her around either.