The Face of "Average"

I grew up going to school during a time when 70% was average. A "C" was average. It was considered acceptable, but not noteworthy in any manner. Of course, being who I am, average was never good enough... average was considered a failure.

These days I have had to accept a new understanding of the word "average." On a scale of 100, 50 is considered average. The middle ground. There is an equal amount above and an equal amount below. Average. There is nothing wrong with average... I have to remind myself of that... and in fact, I am finding that the face of average is pretty darn cute!!


You see, Norah had her 18 month well-baby exam yesterday. Norah loves spending time with Dr. B. (after-all, he comes to play... someone else gives the shots!) and after giving him all her toys to play with, he gave her the stamp of perfect health. During our visit, we did get quite a chuckle off of how well Norah has stuck to the growth curves since birth. In height and weight, she was born at 50%. Now 18 months later, she is still 50%. Between birth and now... she has always stayed at 50%. Now at first, this was hard to bear. Josie was our 97% and higher baby in all those categories. We loved having a big baby. We were, dare I say, proud to have a big baby. Then Norah came a few weeks earlier than expected and a little more petite than expected, and seems to have stayed that way. There is certainly nothing wrong with her being petite... we just have never "done" petite as neither of us come from petite families. That said, we have found that we adore this "average" frame of Norah's just as much as we enjoyed Josie's above-average build. We are a little surprised that we have the child for whom the size/age chart seems to work perfectly for (Josie was always double her age in size... and still is), but we are adjusting. So Norah, at 24 pounds and 32 inches is perfectly average in the doctor's eyes and indeed simply perfect in this mother's eyes.

And all those negative connotations that we associate with the word "average" need to just disappear, because while Norah may be average in her size, her personality goes well beyond anything one would dare call "average." So look out world... she may not look mighty, but she wields quite a punch of personality in that petite package!