Neener, Neener, Neener

I had not started off the month intending to develop a #1 theme to my posts, but so it is.

Height is relative.  At 5' 4 1/2", I am downright tall for a woman on my mother's side of my family.  In my husband's family, however, I am short.  So short, that for 15 years it's been continually pointed out that I am, in fact, the shortest adult.  "Oh yeah, you should see me loom over my mother's clan!," I want to respond.  But I don't because I know it will sound much lamer aloud than it does in my head, and it doesn't sound that great in there, either.  And "loom" is probably an exaggeration, anyway.

My husband, on the other hand, is fairly tall in any set outside of the NBA, at 6 feet.  His 6 feet looks even taller than it is since his weight hasn't reached a buck fifty since we've been married.   And it looks taller, still, because he has very long, thin legs.  I have long legs, too.  You just can't tell, because I'm short and filled out.  But my torso is ridiculously squat in proportion to my height.

Wait, this was supposed to be about #1, right?  I'm getting to that.  #1 looks just like me.  Her facial features are quite similar--especially her nose, and her body shape and development were cloned from my body.  This was obvious to anyone who'd seen us both in the buff from the time she was about 2.  In other words, my husband and my mother and I knew she'd grow to look like me.  Ah, the miracle of genetics.

Families are funny.  They always want a kid of their family member to look like their family member, and not that person's spouse.  So to Larry's family, #1 was the spitting image of him.  "Oh, she'll be tall," they'd say.  "Just look at those long legs!"  Larry would try to go to bat for my case, but he never rounded first.  

His family's remarks were only strengthened by the fact that she started to get tall pretty early on in adolescence.  "She'll be taller than you before you know it."  Here I began to speak up myself.  You see, my mother's family is full of short women.  Short women who reached their adult height by the age of 13.  We all looked tall in Junior High.  But a year later the gig was up, as everyone else around us had kept growing.  So I've been telling the fam, "She may end up taller than me, but she won't be much taller."  No more than an inch, I had predicted.

Well, what do you know.  #1 has turned 14.  She's been 5' 2" for the past year.  I think she's done.  So not only is she not taller than me, she's still 2 1/2" shorter.  My victorious, somewhat gloating attitude has nothing whatsoever to do with #1 herself.  I feel like I've won a 12 year ongoing bet.  I smile whenever I think of it.  I get a little giddy.  Because even if she bucks the trend and does grow a little more, it'll be no 2 inches!  Nope, family.  Not tall.  Short.  I told you so!