He Ain't Heavy?

With the 1-year mark behind us, it is time to update the growth charts to see whether Scott is taking after mom (R) or dad (me). Apparently, mom barely registered on the growth charts for the first few years, always scoring in the lower percentiles. Conversely, I was born later and much larger than average.

According to the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey cited on Wikpedia, R is actually 0.6 inches (1%) taller than the adult female average. I am 6.5 inches (9.5%) taller than the adult male average. Based on some crude math, we would expect Scott to be about 5.2% taller than average -- if he landed exactly between us. That means that he should be 30.25 inches long at one year and 6.01 feet tall when he's an adult.

(Of course, this methodology is pretty flawed, since it does not explain my own height, or the height of any of my siblings.)



According to the charts, the predicted value underestimated Scott's height. At the 1-year mark, Scott was 31 inches tall, or 7.8% more than average. We will now assume that he will be nearly 6'2" when he is an adult, since these calculations were calculated on the back of a napkin in less than 4 minutes.



We have run out of time and napkins to run similar calculations for his weight, but we know from the chart that Scott's weight seems disproportionately low compared to his height. This seems strange, because we hardly consider him a featherweight. In fact, several people have commented that he is heavier than they expect. With his thick legs and prominent tummy, we assume he should be heavy for his height. Perhaps the following statement from the baby chart website explains the low weight:

Very busy, active children tend to be thinner from using up more calories than those who are content to sit and play quietly. Along with activity is the nutrition of the child. If your infant always carries a bottle or cup of juice with them they may weigh more than the average child from the constant ingestion of sugar in the juice.

If you have ever seen him "walking" around on his knees or his super-sonic crawl, you will understand why he might burn a lot of calories. On the other hand, if you've seen him scarfing down bananas, you would wonder how it is possible to burn through ALL of those calories.

Despite the mysteries, we can safely say that Scott is growing steadily, getting some height from dad and some cuteness from mom.

First Birthday

One Day Old:

One Year Old:

We celebrated Scott's first birthday over the course of about a week. On April 21 he got an early present from his grandparents because they were going to be out of town. Then we had a swimming party at Cardel Place with his Calgary cousins on his actual birthday, and a follow-up family party on the 27th with cake, presents and more cousins.

Here is the courageous Captain Nemo with his dear mother at the pool. Unfortunately, the Captain came down with some sort of stomach flu the week of his birthday and he wasn't feeling top-notch. He spent most of the time at the pool clinging to our arms and grimacing. He looked pretty cute in his surfing gear, though. His cousins had a fine time, but we decided to send them home instead of eating cake because Scott was still getting over his illness.


We had a quiet evening opening presents together with his Aunt K, the high school drama queen (literally). One of his presents was this sweet dump truck. His dad was probably more excited than him.

On Sunday (the 27th) the cousins came back and stayed for cake and presents. They didn't even wear surgical masks or anything. Here's a shot of cousin A taking Scott on a test drive through the book that he received from her and her brother H.

Since Scott really hasn't ever tasted sugar, we tried to find a cake that was only 90% glucose / fructose / sucrose. We ended up getting a carrot cake, because it trades fatty cream cheese for some of the sugar and fits in nicely with Scott's great fascination with rabbits.

He likes to point out the window at the neighbourhood bunnies that bounce past. He also likes to point at carrot cakes.

And he likes to eat carrot cakes. Actually, he likes to eat pretty much everything -- except some meats. We have to conceal his cooked chicken among his rice and other foods to fool him into eating it. Otherwise, he just dumps it on the floor with anything else that he's not interested in. Despite some exceptions, he's quite a ravenous eater and probably loves nothing in this world more than a good banana.


I had to throw this picture in even though it's kind of a sad thing to remember about your birthday. Scott's cousin H is 6 months older and much quicker and more coordinated than Scott. As a result, Scott usually comes up short in the competition to lay hold on the best toys. In this instance H had just received these two tractors as party gifts for coming to celebrate Scott's birthday. Scott had tried to muscle in on H's territory, but he quickly scooted away with the tractors.

Well, it's Scott's party and he'll cry if he wants to...