Growing Into It

With a smirk on his face, Pat's brother asks "Hey Julia, so you can't wear turtlenecks, eh?"

(I quickly worried that my chin was already beginning to sag because just recently my mother-in-law told me that old women shouldn't wear turtlenecks because it accentuates the sagging of their chins.)

With a furrowed brow, I just stared at him until he supplied "Pat told me about your big head."

This quickly led into the ever popular discussion about the size of my head when I was a kid, and the easy association to be made as to why my daughter who hardly makes it on the growth chart in height and weight reaches past 70% on the growth charts for the size of her head.

Pat brother adds "Yeah, based on the pictures I see I used to think Ella was stockier than my daughter (who is the same age) until I saw how tiny her body was. Then I realized its just the size of her head that makes her appear larger than she really is."

Bottom line: I had a big head as kid.

But what we should remember here is that I've grown into it. I've often joked that I've had this same head since I was 5. It just took me until I was 15 for my body to catch up with it. And like my mother always told "It has to be big to hold all of my brains." How can you argue with that?

As a kid, getting shirts that fit over my head was a bit of a chore. There was definitely a bit of wrestling with particularly tight necked shirts, and I'm sure turtlencks weren't my favorite. There was a memorable shopping trip while rummaging through sidewalk sale racks when I was around 7. I found a pink sweater that I really wanted, but my mother said I couldn't get it for 2 reasons:
1. It won't fit over your head.
2. It has the name "Melissa" embroidered on it.
But the price must have been right because with some insistence, my mom bought the sweater for me. Remedying the problems by putting a decorative pin on the sweater over the embroidered name and cutting small slits in the collar to get it over my head. ha! Can't say she wasn't resourceful!

Obviously this was comedy gold to my husband and his brother because there was no shortage of big head jokes for the rest of the weekend, and audible snickers and guffaws were heard when I was feverishly trying to wrestle a turtleneck over my own daughters head this weekend.

Don't worry Ella J...its just to hold all of your brains!