One of the first things I did when we returned from LPA is something that has become sort of a once-a-year ritual for me already, namely: measure myself. Ever since I was nine years old and I’ve realized how much taller I was than all my friends, I refused to be measured more than once a year. Even when I’d go to the doctor’s or school nurse’s office or something, I’d refuse when they wanted to measure me. It was traumatic enough, I thought, when I saw all my friends (and, increasingly, many teachers too) way below my eye level, I didn’t need to cement that trauma by knowing precisely my height and obvious growth as well every so often a year. I know, I know, it’s a babyish kinda thing to insist on, but it meant a lot to me. Maybe soon I will not be so strict regarding this stance, but for now, this is how I do things.
Since my birthday is in the beginning of July, after the school year, if I was going to measure myself periodically at all, it made sense to measure me at or near my birthday. And since the LPA convention is usually around end of June, beginning of July, and like I’ve said, we always went to the convention, the ritual we have followed now for the past eight years or so has been to measure me almost immediately after the conference. Better after the convention than before it, I figured, so that my “official” height wouldn’t be known and thereby possibly save some embarrassment for me and some LPs in realizing the relative differences between us.
Obviously, my dad, as the (next-) tallest in the family, has been measuring me almost exclusively most recently, even if he has to use a small stool to reach the measuring tape at the top of my head. This year, because my parents are away these months, I had to rely, believe it or not, on my older brother. I guess I just didn’t even think of asking my friends or other people for whom it would have been much easier; Georgie is right there anyway, so why not? The way I thought would be easiest for him was to have him stand on a ladder as he measured me, as I stood back against the wall. The ladder we have in the garage is 6 feet high, but since the steps are way too high for Georgie to climb, I had to lift him to the top. Standing there barefoot in my jean cut-offs, I was near eye-level with G’s belly button, which was kind of a new perspective for me. As I’m sure it was for him as well.
It took some time for us to get the tape measure to stand even with my heels against the wall as Georgie reached above my head to secure its place directly over it. Once that was accomplished, however, Georgie announced my new height: 6’8! I had grown an inch in the past year! I was a bit disappointed, I must admit, as this was a new thing for me, as I usually grow about three inches per year. Obviously, I was slowing down…which is a bummer. Hey, what can you do? Everyone’s growth slows down and eventually has to stop at some point, I guess.
But I needed to know now how much weight I had put on also. You can’t just grow an inch and not expect to gain weight! As I threw off my shirt and shorts, so that I was clad only in my red bra and undies, and stepped on the scale, I asked Georgie to guess the number. He walked over to me and looking up, smiled and said “200?” I threw him my dirtiest look, saying “that’s so mean! I better not be that much, you little twit!”
That’s when I noticed it first. It’s true I was standing on a scale (probably an inch or so high) and it’s also true that, as I had just learned, I had gained an inch in height recently (that is, in the past year), but I noticed then that Georgie’s head didn’t reach even close to the birthmark on my calf. Now that birthmark had kinda been a personal, on-my-body height mark for Georgie. By which I mean, for the past few years, his head always reached to that mark. He hadn’t grown in the past few years, and I obviously had, but for some reason – I guess my lower leg hadn’t grown while the rest of me continued to grow – the mark remained true to his height. Now however I was noticing it was relatively way above his head mark. What on earth could possibly have happened to cause that difference? I knew then that I had to measure him too, just to quiet my curiosity.
We have measured him a lot, maybe too much in his mind, and lots of times new mothers even ask to measure Georgie against their new-borns so we kinda “lend” him out to be measured and pose for those pics (no, he doesn’t mind! At least we don’t think so. But he can tell you more about that if he wants), but the truth is in recent months we haven’t had an opportunity to measure him too much. So as I mentally registered my weight (197! I had gained 12 pounds for the one inch of growth!) I considered what I had to do.
“Come, Georgie,” I said, “let me measure you now.”
“O come on, Lex, you don’t really think I grew, do you? I haven’t grown in close to four years so it’s really not likely my size has changed.”
“Haha, no, I don’t think that but it’s really weird that your head is not at my birthmark anymore. Did my leg just do a weird dis-proportionate growth kinda thing? I just gotta see. Do you really mind, sweetie?”
So I measured him. Now, we don’t use the against-the-wall-marking thing for Georgie as we do for me, since his size kinda requires that we do it more accurately, so we usually measure him as he lies on a surface. I used the same tape measure we used for me on him, since it lists both inches and centimeters also. Centimeters being smaller than inches, it’s more of an exact measure. Like I mentioned in the beginning, Georgie has been 17.7 inches, or 45 cm., tall/long for at least the last three years so I wasn’t really expecting to see any difference.
But as I made sure his shoulders were flat against the table-top, and his feet and calves stretched taught, I noticed the tape measure only going to the 17 inches, or 43 cm., line, and not three-quarters of an inch above that. I don’t know what I was expecting, but that caught me by surprise. I was like, “what? How’d that happen?” Just to be sure, though, I tried a few more times…each time he came out to 17 inches exactly. Maybe I should have tried again in the morning or the evening, because heights change per time of day (I think I read that somewhere. Am I wrong?), but I don’t think it would have made such a difference on him.
Georgie was getting fidgety, wanting to know what was taking so long, why I had to measure him so many times. I didn’t know how to break it to him…I mean, he’s so tiny, for God’s sake, how was I to tell him he was even tinier than before? Somehow I was feeling embarrassed and guilty for the new reality. As I could feel my face getting all hot and red, stumbling over my words, I finally got out that I think he may have shrunk.
“What??” Georgie nearly shouted. “That can’t be right. People don’t just shrink. Maybe you measured me wrong?”
“No,” I said, “remember I just did that a few times. You are most definitely 17 inches or 43 cm. tall now. Sorry, G. I know how much it must suck.”
“So maybe you’ve been measuring me wrong all these years? Like, maybe I’ve always been only 43 instead of 45 cm?”
“No, I don’t think that’s it either. We were pretty sure about the 45 cm thing. Remember doctors have measured you that tall also. Even the Guinness World Records people have measured you at 45 cm. But you’re definitely just 43 cm now. I don’t know how to explain it, G…except…maybe you have that shrinking disease I’ve heard and read about so much.”
“No, no, no -- there is no such thing as a shrinking disease! Where’d you hear about that? I mean, come on, if there was such a thing, how come you don’t see tiny people all over? And even if there was, why, of all people, would I get it? Remember the whole primordial dwarfism thing? Shrinking on top of that seems to be more cosmic evil than seems likely.”
“Well, what can I say? Life’s not fair. I hardly need to tell you, of all people, that! I still think maybe you have it…and the reason we don’t know or see other tiny people is just because they don’t want everyone seeing them. But whatever. It’s only a difference of three quarters of an inch. Maybe it’s not really a disease for such a minor loss. Do you think I should take you to the doctor’s?”
“No, I feel fine, and you’re right, if it’s only three quarters of an inch maybe it’s not really anything serious. I mean, when did this even happen? It’s probably just some weird fluke. I mean, bones aren’t supposed to shrink in normal people, right? Except of course for normal shrinking for people with Osteoporosis…but you only get that when you’re old and frail. Other than the obvious, of course, I’m as healthy as a horse! Haha. No, but really, how could this happen to me?? Whatever… I probably can hold out til Mom and Dad get back. If it gets worse by then, then ok, maybe I would have to see someone. Right now let’s just forget this, ok?”
“Ha! You think I can just forget that my teeny tiny brother just got teenier? So what if it’s only three quarters of an inch, that’s still HUGE for someone your size! If I lost that much, it would mean nothing since relatively speaking three quarters of an inch is nothing on me. But on you, it’s huge! Anyhow, obviously I’m not gonna run and tell everyone but don’t think for a moment I’m gonna just forget this! In fact, come to think of it, we should probably weigh you too. Just like I gained a few pounds when I grew that inch, I would expect you to have lost some weight for that three quarters inch loss.”
Grabbing the little guy before he could protest, I walked with him back to the weight scale. Now, we used to have one of those baby scales for Georgie, since he really is too small for the regular one…and too big for the food scale (haha I did try that once on him when I was 10). But the baby scale broke a while ago and we just haven’t fixed it since then. So to weigh him, I quickly undressed him to his undies, as I was clad myself, and I once again got on the scale. His face was shoved near my boobs, and as I looked down on him I reminded him that he had been up close and personal with the girls not too long ago, so he better not get too fresh. G just smiled in response. The scale showed 205 exactly, which meant that Georgie was 8 pounds even. Since he had been 8.5 before, we knew that together with that three quarters of an inch loss he had lost half a pound in weight as well. This was definitely a serious issue.
Would I grow more than 6’8, 197 lbs? Would G shrink smaller than 17 inches, 8 lbs? As much as it killed me to think of it, and I prayed it would never get worse, only time would tell for sure.