THE HEUSSER FAMILY: It's Official....

Joanna is two and a half years old today! As part of the celebration (don't worry, I don't always celebrate half birthdays, something just compelled me to today) we marked her height on her growth chart, something we have neglected to do since her 2 year check-up six months ago, and took her weight. I am very happy to report that Joanna is a lofty 3 feet 3 inches tall and 35 lbs! I don't know if it's the fact that I have two tiny babies around, or what, but Joanna has just looked so grown up to me lately -- not only because of the way she carries herself but also just because of her shear size. I guess it really hit me that Joanna is destined to be 'one tall drink of water' when we went to the park last week; We were the only ones there for the first half hour and then another mom and her daughter pulled up to play. Joanna immediately rushed the poor girl, grabbed her by the hand (before she could even step foot onto the wood chips), and dragged her towards the slide yelling 'come on baby! let's go!' 'come on baby! you try, you'll like it!' (no joke....I don't know where this calling people 'baby' thing came from...she has also started calling strangers 'boy' and 'pussy cat'.....it has become embarrassing yet absolutely hysterical at the same time)

Hahaha! Okay so now I have to take you on a tangent since I mentioned the 'pussy cat' thing....while my mom was visiting after the boys were born, she inadvertently got Joanna HOOKED on Tom and Jerry (the cartoon) -- my mom didn't know what channel to turn to, so she just found the first cartoon she could, which happened to be Tom and Jerry...that was all she wrote! Joanna asks me to watch Tom and Jerry at least 20 times a day and she sits absolutely mesmerized by the cat and mouse antics...the thing that gets me, is that there is no narration or words being spoken in Tom and Jerry, just action and sound effects, and yet, she loves it!! So, one of the Tom and Jerry episodes involves a French mouse who calls Tom 'le pussy cat' (which Joanna just finds hysterical). One day, shortly after my mom left and before I realized the full scope of Joanna's Tom and Jerry obsession, Joanna and I were standing in the shampoo isle at Target. As I am engrossed in my thoughts about which shampoo to choose, I hear Joanna saying 'pussy cat! hahhaa' 'pussy cat! hahaaha' and I turn around to see her cornering this lady with her pointer finger (the french mouse wielded a sword....). I don't think the lady knew what to make of it all, so I quickly grabbed whatever bottle of shampoo was in front of me and swept Joanna away before the lady could figure out what was going on....the shampoo I grabbed is terrible by the way.....

Okay, back on track! So, Joanna is dragging this poor girl around the park trying to make her play with her. The girl's mother thankfully found the whole situation endearing and quickly reassured me that I didn't need to try to scrape Joanna off of her new friend. The other mother said 'Oh, she is so cute and so outgoing -- how old is she?' I replied 'two and a half.' The mother 'oh! wow! my daughter is 4.' And as I looked over at the two standing next to each other I realized why the mom was so shocked....Joanna was about three inches taller than her 4 year old. So all of this culminated today when I got the idea to search the web for a height prediction calculator, which was very easy to find. It asked your child's height at 2 years old, her weight, mom's height and dad's height. Based on this info, it predicted that Joanna will be 6 feet 3 inches tall by the time she is 18!!!!! Now THAT is a tall drink of water!