bottomless pit

From the very second Gray was born, Mark and I knew he was bigger than Miller. He was slightly shorter (though not for long), a few ounces heavier, and just not as chicken-like as Miller was as a newborn. He seemed stockier, even at minutes old, and we were not wrong in our observation.

At six months old, he weighed 22 pounds, 10 ounces. To put that into perspective, Everett - at his ONE YEAR check-up on Monday - weighed in at 21 pounds, 6 ounces. By the time Gray was 10 months old, he was wearing size 2T clothes.

At three years nine months he is - gulp - 52 pounds. His shoes are size 13. If you put his wrists next to mine, his are actually bigger. And I mean, the BONE part is bigger. He is just a huge kid.

Ever since preschool got out, he has been bored and I've had to practically body-slam him multiple times a day to keep him out of the kitchen. He's learned how to quietly pull a chair over to the cabinet and score a snack for himself. Just a few weeks ago I had the doctor test him for diabetes because of his incredible thirst and appetite. (It was negative.)

Yesterday was the last day of school for Miller. As I do every morning, I fixed all of the kids breakfast before we left the house at 8:15. As we pulled back into the driveway, less than an hour after his two bowls of cereal, I hear him say from the back of the van. "I'm HUNGRY. I want lunch."

And today I just had to laugh. He was really being a handful, so I told him to go get a book and we'd read together, figuring that he was just needing some one-on-one mommy time. He hurried off, and came back with a book in his hand, ready for me to read to him.

He plopped into my lap. In his hand.... a cookbook.