Off the Charts

When you take your child to the pediatrician it is a world full of enormous information and confidence building.  In the early months, as a nursing mom, I was anxious to get him on that scale to ensure that I was not starving him to death.  Initially my little piggy did not disappoint as he was 3 ounces over his birth weight 3 days after birth and a whole pound and some ounces a month after.  Little did I know that the pediatrician's office was also a secret site of information gathering and guilt building for new mommies. 
It goes like this:  The nurse asks you a handful of questions when you get there, which are the same each time (don't they save this info?!) and then pecks in your child's weight, length, and head circumference in the computer.  The doctor then comes in, greets you with a smile, comments on how great X is looking, and then goes over to that screen of shame.  She pulls up the growth charts that look like some evil reminiscent of my research in education class at ODU, whips the screen around to the nervous parents, and points to a little x that marks where you child is.  Consider the lines like a rainbow of percentiles, the top of the rainbow being the 90th percentile, the bottom the 5th.  If I can remember what that means from that evil class, that if you child is in the 80th percentile, that they are growing in the range above 80% of the rest of the children. That being said, my child would basically be sitting in a pot of gold. (which doesn't sound too bad to this stay at home mom..)  His little x just hangs out on the bottom of the screen, where the doctor is always quick to remind me that his parents are not large people by any means so we shouldn't expect him to be on the top there.  Enter my new friend guilt.  After being the sole provider of my child's nutrition for over 6 months, I felt like I was creating milk that must be like air and am leading my child to a life of short jokes and beanpole jabs.  This coupled with so many people looking at me in a shocked manner when I tell them his age and  they say "wow, he's so small"  For a bit there, it was hard to make milk when you have a giant monkey on your back. 
    I took my son for his 9+ month checkup with my head held high and confident that his growth would make that little x climb up that rainbow. We have entered the world of solid foods which my child has taken up a love affair with.  His clothes are rapidly shrinking, as I am realizing that there are things that he has yet to wear! I digress.  My husband and I both just knew our son was going to be at least 20 pounds, where I had visions that we were going to have to go buy all new clothes and that 'big boy' car seat in the very near future.  Alright, so he was more like 17lbs 12oz, but I still held on to hope as the nurse typed the info into the computer.  In strolls the doctor, and as the screen is turned in our direction, shock and guilt quickly push those confident feelings over the ledge as his little x was STILL there on the bottom 5.  
I know that this charting really doesn't matter as he is happy, healthy, and sleeps through the night with a full belly each night.  Maybe this is the start of a set of neurotic parents and a lifetime of competition with the rest of the world.