Conversation held with another mom this weekend at a play area:

Other Mom: How old is your little girl?

Me: 21 months.

OM: Oh, our kids are the same age!

Me: (looking at her little boy) Oh! Cool.

OM: She’s just so big for her age!

Me: Uh, yeah, she is. She’s a big, healthy girl.

OM: She’s got at least a couple of inches over my son!

Me: Yep, I guess she does. We’re hoping for a basketball player.

OM: How much does she weigh?

Me: Close to 30 pounds. She’s slowed down in the past few months.

OM: WOW! My little guy is only about 24 pounds!

(silence for awhile as the kids play)

OM: When I first saw your daughter, I thought she must be two or three, but then I noticed she didn’t act like a two year old.

Me: Oh really? Yeah, well, she’s often mistaken for being older than she is.

OM: My son is right around the 50th percentile. He’s pretty much average.

Me: Huh. Well, nothing wrong with average.

(a little more silence)

OM: My daughter was like yours when she was little. She was at the top of the charts until about 9 months, and then she leveled off.

Me: Oh, OK. Cordy has been at the top of the charts so far, with no signs of slowing down.

OM: She really is big!

(OM’s husband comes in)

OM: (to husband) That little girl is the same age as our son, but look how much bigger she is!

OMH: Wow, she is big! Has she always been so big?

Me: Well, she was over 8 pounds at birth…

OM: (laughing) Our kids were both over 9 pounds when they were born!

Me: Yeah, well, clearly the steroids and bovine growth hormone are doing the job, then.

[end scene]

So there you have it. I have the largest 21 month old in Columbus. She’s big enough to make people stop and stare, and to make them keep reminding me just how large she is.

I was a little baffled by the conversation, unsure whether to be flattered or insulted. Was she trying to tell me my daughter was freakishly large next to her compact little boy?

I’ve often found myself chatting with other moms and doing the size comparison dance with them. We laugh about how different kids are, usually. This conversation just felt different, because this mom seemed to be so amazed that a child of that age could be so large. I started to wonder if I should call the circus and see if I could make any money off of my offspring.

Yes, Cordy is my Amazon warrior princess. She’s 35 inches tall, weighs close to 30 pounds, and has a cranium so large that she can already wear adult sized hats. She is already growing out of her 2T clothing and starting into 3T. (which is expensive, might I add) Her doctors place her at the tip-top of the charts. But she has the coordination of a 21 month old, meaning she crashes into everything. Head injuries are usually a daily occurrence. Thankfully, most of the time she barely notices.

Do I think she’s going to set records? No, of course not. She will eventually even out with her peers, whenever her body decides it’s time to slow down.

Do I wish she was just average? Sometimes. It would certainly put less strain on my back to carry a smaller toddler, less strain on my credit cards to buy clothing less often, and less strain on my nerves to fend off comments about her size. But she was my giant baby, and now she’s my Amazon toddler, and I love her just the way she is, even if she isn’t a dainty flower.

At least I know that if other kids ever try to bother her, she can hold her own in a fight.

AARON GOT THE JOB!!!!

He got the call this morning, and will start on July 10. He was offered near the bottom of the pay range, but it’s still more than he makes now, and the job will have regular raises, unlike the job he has now, which has offered no raises.

He’s already turned in his resignation letter, and we are both overjoyed at the prospect of having a little more money each month, as well as a job for him that doesn’t leave him depressed. And it’s good timing, too: yesterday we had to take one of our cats to the emergency vet (he should be fine, but the bill hurts), and our dishwasher started spewing forth sudsy water onto the kitchen floor when we ran it yesterday. Plus I still have no A/C in my car.

That is all for now. I will be back later with a post about the conversation I had with another mom this weekend about the fact that my daughter is abnormally large.

Well, here it is. I wanted to keep the current background style, but jazz things up a little. And I have not one, but THREE winners! See, I can’t choose just one winner – there were so many good ideas, I had to combine a few.

First, we have Karen, who designed the adorable book image in the header.

Next, we have Sandra, who produced a beautiful template, of which I borrowed the hand-colored image of Cordy for the right side of the header. (I may come back to that template design when I’m ready to switch templates!)

Finally, Kristen supplied the tagline. She actually gave me quite a list of taglines, all of which I may rotate into use over time. (And truthfully, I may use the taglines from everyone else as well!)

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest. I appreciate all of the inspiration you provided me, and I would be happy to return the favor at any time. And to my winners, please e-mail me your address and shirt size (or child’s shirt size, if you’d prefer the Blog Fodder shirt for your child instead of the Woman, Daughter, Wife, Mommy, Blogger shirt for yourself).

(And another thanks to Her Bad Mother, who inspired Karen with the her comment about Cordy being a “warrior child” and prompting the title of the book image. How about I’ll buy you a drink at Blogher?)

So my 30th year started off with a bang. Or more like a thud. This morning Cordy was in her normal Do I Have ADHD or Am I Just A Toddler hyperactive state, climbing on the sofa, standing up, then jumping and kicking her legs out to bounce on the cushions. She’s training for the circus, so she can support her parents in their old age.

But this morning something went wrong. She jumped, but she was too close to the edge of the sofa. Her legs kicked out, and she did bounce on the cushion, but it only served to propel her off the couch. I was sitting right next to her, but it happened so fast I wasn’t able to grab her. She turned in midair and landed hard on her neck and the back of her head, followed by the rest of her body.

I tossed the laptop aside and grabbed her. She started crying immediately, which is always a good sign. She calmed down after only a few minutes, resting her head against my chest. Legs moving? Check. Arms moving? Check. Still awake? Check. Everything seemed OK, so I set her down. She cried again, and her head flopped against me.

For the next half hour, she laid on me, her head on my lap, unwilling to sit up or lift her head. Aaron gave her some ibuprofen before he left – she didn’t even want to hug him goodbye, which is unlike her. If I touched her head, she whimpered. I finally got up and laid her back on the couch, her head on a pillow. She remained there for another half hour. She didn’t want to dance with the Wiggles. She didn’t want to follow me into the bathroom. I started to worry a little.

I spoke with my mom, who of course panicked and said I should take her to the hospital. I try hard to not be one of those “freaking out” moms – after all, she could still move all limbs, and she hadn’t passed out on me. But I agreed to call her pediatrician, who insisted I bring her in right away.

Cordy didn’t appreciate being lifted and put in the car, but she didn’t struggle either. In fact, she was fine until we walked into the exam room at the doctor’s office and then she had a post-traumatic flashback to past doctor’s visits and started crying. (She hates the doctor.)

I gave the nurse a full account of what happened. She asked if the long, thin bruise on Cordy’s forehead was from the fall. I explained that no, it was from yesterday’s fall, when the kid tried to climb the cat tree and fell, hitting her head on the lever to the recliner. (Which she bounced right back from.) Yeah, we’re experienced with head injuries.

The doctor came in, talked with me a few minutes, then checked Cordy. He listened to her lungs, he checked her heart. He looked in her ears, and in her mouth. (Which she fought the entire time.) He lightly brushed his hand over the back of her head. And he said she’s fine.

So, my daughter’s head and neck, which you didn’t even check, is fine. Good to know you have x-ray eyes, doc. Grrr.

I mean, I figured she was fine. But he could have at least felt her neck or the red area behind her ear. What if she had a mild concussion or a subdural hematoma?

I left with a handout on mild head injuries (stuff I already knew) and $20 less than I had an hour before. It was good to get a professional opinion, but I should have saved my money. I knew she was probably fine – she probably didn’t want to lift her head because of the throbbing headache she gave herself. But I may start looking for a new pediatrician.

After we got home, Cordy started to resume her normal activities. While she’s probably trying to act as normal as possible to avoid being taken to the doctor again, it’s good to know she’s getting back to normal now. In fact, she just tried to jump on the couch again. Sigh.

Oh, and thank you all for the birthday wishes! Yesterday was a quiet, rainy day, but it was nice to take the day off work and be with Cordy for my birthday. Aaron got me the cherry blossom necklace I have been coveting from Blend Creations, which totally surprised me.

Also, stay tuned for the winners of the contest! Yes, I said winnerS! You were all so creative that I decided to put a few different ideas together to come up with one fabulous idea – it’ll be coming in the next day, hopefully!

Today, 30 years ago, I was born around 11am. Mom woke up around 6am, her water broke, and I was born 5 hours later. (Wish we could all have labors like that, eh?)

It was a very happy day for her, having had a miscarriage a year and a half before that day, and having given birth just 10.5 months prior to her first daughter who died days later. She knew upon seeing me that I was the child who would make it. Born on the summer solstice, already full of strength and spirit.

(I have to laugh, because I used to think that life ends at 30. I was convinced that life wasn’t worth living anymore once you reached 30. Now, I’m 30, and thinking maybe I was just a little wrong.)

Looking back over the past 30 years, I ask myself what I have learned thus far in my life. I mean, I’m now officially an adult – there’s no denying it. The boisterous childhood is long past, the conflicted teen years are becoming more fuzzy everyday, and now the soul-searching 20’s have gone as well. I am an adult. Surely I have picked up some wisdom to share from my 30 years.

Probably like most people, I’ve survived a lot. Nearly drowning at 6 years old because I thought I had enough air to dive to the bottom of a 10 foot pool, enough teasing and ostracism from other kids for being different that I wanted to kill myself at times, breaking my arm, narrowly escaping being kidnapped by a stranger, being molested by my elderly babysitter’s high school grandson, etc. (Strangely enough, the worst things that have happened to me were mostly before high school.) I’m a big believer in what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I’ve also had some amazing experiences. College was probably one of the best experiences. It gave me the chance to get out of my small hick-town and really experience everything life has to offer. I joined a sorority, partied with the best of them, and started to find the real me. I stepped out of my comfort zone and spent a summer in England. By the end of that summer I didn’t want to come home. I lost what religion I had while at college and began to explore my spirituality as if through the eyes of a child. I swept all that I was out of me and opened myself up to new experiences.

Would I want to change one experience? Not really. Even the bad ones shaped who I am today by giving me strength. Even my evil high school boyfriend, who broke my heart and left me with a scar on my arm (long story), taught me about taking care of myself in a relationship.

There are many moments where I wish I could change how I reacted, though. I’ve had so many times in life where I hesitated, played it safe, or chose not to do something because I was scared. I let my own fears hold me back from experiences that probably would have been amazing. And there were also many times I did things I didn’t want to do, just to go with the crowd or please someone else.

It’s taken me 30 years to realize that I am a strong person, and always have been. Having Cordelia really helped me to understand this. Before her I only had to worry about myself, which meant I often let my own needs go and got walked on by everyone. But now she’s here, and I am one of her protectors. I am her advocate, and she depends on me. My maternal instinct has kicked in, and in doing so I am aware of just what I’m capable of. I am willing to stand up to others now.

So where am I at currently? 30 is a turning point, at least biologically. No longer is the body’s focus on growth and development. The body at 30 is beginning to shift to maintenance – to fight off the effects of time. Like before, my skin is still sensitive, but now the wrinkles are starting to peek through. My light blonde hair of childhood has changed to a light chestnut brown, and new grey hairs are appearing each day. I’m heavier than I want to be, and that upsets me, but I plan to do something about it.

Mentally, 30 is a turning point. It’s a chance to take stock of how far you’ve come, and to think about where you want to go. I’m now ready at this point in my life to start caring for me. Because if I’m going to be the rock of strength my daughter can turn to in need, I must care for myself so that I can be there for her. Plus, I’m done making decisions out of my own fears. I want to try new things, I want to make myself a priority. I can’t wait to go to Blogher 06, because it’s something I never would have done when I was 20 or 25. I still lack career goals, but I don’t care anymore. Linda Hirshman be damned, I’ve never been happier than I am now. I love being a mom.

I’m totally ready to take on at least another 30 years with that strength. And now my life is going to be lived for me and my family, and not for others who don’t even care about me. I’m especially fond of this song, from the musical Jane Eyre. (Yes, they made a musical of Jane Eyre. It was actually a good musical. Stop laughing.) The song reminds me of me as a child, and me today.

Let the world forsake me
let them do their worst
I will withstand it all
they will not break me.

And finally, one more song. This is the one that has inspired me lately.

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Have a great day everyone. The winner of the contest will be coming late today or tomorrow. You’ve still got until 2pm to get an entry in. (And thanks to those who have submitted entries already! I’ve got some tough choices to make!)