He's Tall But Gentle; She's Short But Feisty

I'm sure I will forget these things soon, and was lousy about documenting them in the kids' baby books, so here goes a try.

My son is 2 months shy of turning 6 years old. He is already 4 feet tall and wears size 7 clothes. I'm not sure what he weighs but it's something around 45 lbs. He's very lanky -- on some days, you'd say gangly and skinny. I take his trousers in at the waist -- one inch on each side, and he's still having to pull his pants up constantly since he has no tush or hips!

My daughter is 3 1/2 years old and is 3 feet tall. She wears 3T clothes but has size 10 feet, like a puppy about to grow a lot. I don't know what she weighs either -- maybe 33 lbs or so. She is also lanky. Same thing with the trousers.

While I certainly didn't realize I would be sewing constantly just to get their clothes to fit (and they wear "slim" fit clothes exclusively), I'm utterly relieved that they won't be candidates for pediatric diabetes any time soon.

Dad, Come See My Poop!

Over the last 6 months, we've been in the practice of insisting our kids try for a BM daily. (This is to counteract the constipation and pain that ensues when one holds it in.) To make it less onerous / more appealing, we added the possibility of earning 3 marbles if one has a BM without being reminded, and 2 marbles if one has a BM but only at Mom or Dad's prompting. The kids can trade in marbles at a rate of 25 cents each. It's working well. The only catch is that we have had to use visual verification of BM production, because on occasion we have had doubted our kids' veracity. So we are called to the bathroom to "come see my poop". Normally this is a non-issue; except when Mom or Dad is trying to work, eat, sleep or cook a meal.

Net net: it's still worth it because we used to have weekly constipation tantrums, tears, drama and of course, parental panic that our son's biologic system was going to be completely out of whack.