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Sunday, June 06, 2010
Growth!
As I have mentioned in previous posts, in our living room we have a big computer monitor set up that cycles through all 12,000+ pictures that we have taken since our daughter was born. It's a nice conversation piece and at least once a day one will catch someone's eye who will point it out to the whole family. This is cool.
Yesterday a picture went by that really showed the incredible growth that Owen has had since his surgery to make his head smaller. The picture was this one:
taken on May 20, 2009. Now I know that this picture is just over a year old and you would certainly expect a fair amount of growth in that time, but I'm not talking about just any growth. Take a look at Owen's legs in that picture, and then in this one:
which was taken on June 17, 2009. Look at how tiny his legs are in comparison to the rest of his body. They are seriously out of proportion. He was just starting to stand up a bit and was bearing full weight on them for the first time ever and that really showed in his growth. Despite the stander, bouncer and walker which all allowed him to put some weight on his legs, it still wasn't enough to get them to grow to a normal length - bones grow in direct proportion to the weight that they bear.
Now take a look at the picture I took tonight:
Not only do you get a nice view of the head size/shape change, but look at the difference in his legs. Owen's surgery was on November 3, 2009. In early October of 2009 I measured him for his stroller. I measured him again on April 10th of this year. The results were rather amazing.
| Measurement |
October 2009 |
April 2010 |
| Top of Head to Seat (1) |
25 |
24.25 |
| Top of Shoulder to Seat (10) |
14 |
14.25 |
| Actual Seating Depth (3,4) |
8 |
9.5 |
| Lower Leg Length (12) |
7 |
8 |
| Foot Length (5) |
4 |
5 |
All measurements are in inches. The first measurement is interesting because it actually got .75 inches smaller - that is how much they took off the top of his head. The second measurement shows that he only grew .25 inches in his torso during that time. Now, unfortunately I didn't take just a plain old full leg length measurement, but based on those measurements and his height you can surmise that his legs grew between 2.0 and 2.5 inches in that time. Compared to the quarter of an inch for his torso that is quite a lot of catching up that his legs are doing! He also had tiny feet and you can see that their length has increased by a full inch. These measurements are all confirmed by the fact that I had to buy him all new clothes and shoes - thanks to Nacol for all the hand-me-downs from Noah, they were a lifesaver!
I remember how hard it was for him to stand up in those earlier pictures. It was such a struggle and he could only keep it going for a very short time. Tonight I just put him in front of his bed in a crawling position and told him to stand up. He reached up and stood up in a matter of seconds with ease and stayed up there while I took the pictures. Of course when he saw his sister in the bed he did something else he couldn't have done last year and just got in with her:
He was more interested in his sister's stuffed bear than he was in Mommy trying to get him to look at the camera, but that's OK.
I will have to do all of those measurements again soon, but it's easy to see just by looking at him how much his legs have grown - and having bigger legs is just what he needs to get walking! Owen now weighs 33 pounds 7 ounces. Just after his surgery he weighed 30 pounds even. Three and a half pounds in seven months, that's not bad!
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