Shorty

For the past month I have been avoiding standing next to Nathan at least if I wasn't wearing heels.  I would run and duck for cover whenever he was about to compare our heights.  Or I give him an excuse about how my back hurt or I'm pregnant so my spine wasn't straight.  I think even one time I told him we couldn't measure ourselves because the humidity was making his hair too fluffy:)

 

I can't really blame Nathan, I brought this on myself with my incessant teasing the past 6 months and calling him shorty like 5000 times.  I did the same thing to Darin before he surpassed me last year.  But, the great thing about a second child is that when they hit some big milestone you don't cry and bawl your eyes out.  You've accepted milestones will happen and can jump right into making the most out of the situation. 

 

A few weeks ago I posted this on FB "Nathan seems to think he is taller than me. To teach him a lesson I want to make a special meal full of "shorty" food. Any ideas?"

 

My friends are way more clever then anything I thought of.  Here are their answers:

• Short ribs
• A short stack of pancakes!
• baby corn, baby carrots, mini pancakes, donut hole
• I think you should serve shrimp!
• Mini Sliders
• whatever you do, make sure your food is bigger and taller
• Little smokies
• Little Debbie.  Yeah give him a Little Debbie, then give yourself a whole cake! Muhahaha!
• Fried tuyo.. (from my Uncle Glen, they are tiny fried fish)
• Strawberry short cake, short bread cookies. Short ribs
• Tater tots
• You should buy baby corn & corn on the cob, baby carrots and regular carrots, sliders & regular hamburgers, etc. LOL! Don't worry, Steph. All my kids are taller than me, and I can still take them down. Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha!! ;)

Ken and I talked this over and we went with the mini-slider/big hamburger idea.  I loved the idea of shrimp but Nathan hates seafood and this was his "special" dinner afterall. 

The girls entertained Nathan by acting like bucking horses and chasing him around the house.  Darin had been in on our secret plans since he had seen my facebook post and he was happy to help me make the mini-food.  Hamburgers and corn.  Can I just say that whole baby corn is extremely hard to find!

 We also loved the idea of strawberry SHORT-cake!

Right before dinner started we realized we totally missed our chance on getting the mini-cans of soda versus the regular sized ones.
 When Nathan came to the table he kept asking us, "What's with the little hamburgers??"

And his expression when we told him that we had made this special dinner in honor of him.  It's really not fair for us to expect short people to eat full-sized food:)
Nathan was a really good sport!  Rose and Ginger were in Heaven!  They thought it was an awesome idea and want every meal to feature doll-sized food.

Nathan actually liked the mini-hamburgers alot.  He ate 5 of them!  Which actually equals 1 2/3 of a regular sized hamburger.  I may have to feed him smaller food more often since it's always a struggle for him to gain weight.

Baby Corn

Nibble-Nibble

The girls ate a lot more then they usually do too.  Ginger said she had 4 of them!  There is no way she would normally eat 1 1/2 of a full sized hamburger.

We didn't have the mini-sodas, but we did use the girls tea party dishes.

Nathan really did a great job of taking all of our teasing.  I think he totally enjoyed the extra attention.

Rose had cut straws so they had little short ones for their cups.

Halfway through dinner Ginger decided that she needed to make Nathan a short little napkin.

About to enjoy his two bites of strawberry shortcake.  Of course since we gave him a mini-fork it took him 8 bites:)

Darin thinks the big versions are awesome!

After Nathan finished his tiny one he went back and raided all the leftover pieces and made himself a proper dessert.  He kept eating them with his teeny-tiny fork though.

Darin continued to deliver zingers to Nathan.  Me and Ken warned him that it may not be too much longer before Nathan would be permanently taller then him.

Our warnings didn't stop Darin  so we gave Nathan permission to go after his brother with his teeny-tiny fork.

Yep, I think Nathan and the girls proved that being small has it's advantages.  They ate about 3 strawberry shortcakes each. 

After dinner Ken took out the tape measure and we made it official!

Ginger is 4' 0"

Rose is 4' 3"

Darin is 5' 6.25"  The .25" makes a huge difference of course:)

I love my husband, he's always on my side!  First he tilted the book down.

When Nathan complained about that, Ken raised the tape measurer up so it didn't hit the ground at the bottom.  Can you believe he complained about that too:)

Thinking super tall thoughts!  Nathan measured 5' 5.5"

Then it was my turn.

I measured 5' 5"

He is one happy boy! Half of an inch is a really big deal!!

It's a sad day for Mom.  No more little sons:(  Honestly, I don't even know how they got so big, I can close my eyes and still see them toddling around at 2 feet tall with their little drool-ey smiles.

But, I'm happy for Nathan.  He was really happy and was dancing around with Ginger.

And since our growing boy didn't eat enough dessert we broke out the mini-snickers ice cream bars and the big ones.  Nathan was happy to get a full-sized snickers bar!

We love our Nathan and despite all of our teasing we are so happy that he is growing up.  Or at least we are so proud of the young adult he is growing into.  He is so kind and thoughtful.  He's been taking on more responsibility and is really working hard to grow up emotionally as well as physically.  We do long for the days when he was younger because he was such a joy then too, but we are excited to see the future man that he is becoming!  Love you Nathan!!!