Growing Up

It seems like every time we turn around one of the girls has grown an inch or learned how to do something new.  They are both getting old far too quickly.  And we have the numbers to prove it.

So let us clear up something first.  Our records are not as consistent as we would like them to be.  For instance, annual check-ups should come right around a child's birthday.  Well, at this point Callie has her annual check-up about five months after her birthday.  For Reese, it is just a couple of months behind.  Now, the good thing is that the girls have been so darn healthy that the only time we get to see Dr. Warner is for the annual check-up.  But it also means that we now have a tough time figuring out how much growing they have done in a full year.

So Callie's six-year numbers that include the four months after her sixth birthday, are as follows.  She was 47 inches and in the 75th percentile.  And her weight of a whopping 42.5 lbs put her in the 25th percentile.  Reese's three year plus two month numbers are 37 1/4 inches tall, in the 55th percentile.  Her weight of 26.5 lbs placed her in the 10th percentile.  Believe it or not, this was actually a percentile increase for her in weight over her two year check-up.  And as Dr. Warner says, both Callie and Reese are growing like Bowes girls grow.

Taking the girls together for their annual check-ups was efficient as well as helpful since Callie stepped into her big sister mode and really supported Reese throughout the process.  When the appointment was over each girl received a Chick-Fil-A certificate of bravery which didn't sit unused for long. To honor their good behavior they cashed in those certificates for a meal at Chick-Fil-A that night.

Reese especially loves the idea that she is constantly growing.  We try to push down on her head, but she just pops right back up and proclaims "I'm getting taller!"  Based on their numbers we thought it would be fun to take a picture of all four us standing one behind the other because from Reese to Callie to Sarah to John there is now about a one foot difference at each step.  It would have made a great picture but Reese refused to cooperate.  So this is what you get.

Callie also enjoys the idea that she is getting taller and older. And she really enjoys the idea of almost as being as tall as her mom. We shall see how things play out over the next couple of years, but as of February 2014 she only had about 15 inches to go. The race is on!

But for all the physical growth, there is also some mental and emotional growth that still needs to happen.  We present you with Exhibit A for Callie Alexis Bowes.  She received a "reteach" from Mrs. Bradley one day because she had shut her friend Garrett into his locker at school.  Yes, our sweet Callie closed the locker door on poor Garrett, who is a very sweet kid with a huge smile.  The truth of the event only came to light through some persistent questioning from John over the course of a car ride.  Callie was not ready at first to admit that she knew Garrett was in the locker when she closed it on him.  However, she finally came clean.  Later, when Sarah reexamined her, she fessed up quicker.  Sarah reinforced the importance of telling the truth and told Callie she was glad that Callie had been honest with her.  Callie said, "Yeah, when I talked to Dad about it we had to talk for a long, long time."  Then Sarah made her write an apology to Garrett and fortunately for all of us she had the right idea of taking a picture of the assembled evidence for future purposes like this.  The best part of this story is the following weekend when we ran into Garrett and his mom at the playground where Sarah had to apologize on behalf of the Bowes family for Callie's actions.  Thankfully, neither Garrett nor his mom were upset about it, and we quickly were able to laugh about the whole thing.  So Callie learned that telling the truth is important.  And we learned that Callie might be able to hold her own against the boys.