Two Recent Milestones

After months of it seeming inevitable, somewhere between the New Year and St. Patrick's

After the second-tallest person in our family's
first soccer match.

Day, it happened: Charlie got taller than his mother.  They hung around at even height (or too close to call) for a while.  His Competent Mother seemed reluctant for this milestone to arrive. 

It's right, though, that children get taller than their parents.  It's one of those subtle signs of the health and prosperity that is easy to take for granted.  We got an objective measurement while at the home of friends who keep a t-square near their family measuring post in the kitchen.  Charlie is a half-inch taller than Paige, which makes him - as you can see - not much shorter than yours truly.  He's coming for me.

The second milestone we reached - again after a long period of waiting and observation - is Teddy moving out of a booster seat.  No photographic evidence to share, but he's finally tall enough that the seatbelt doesn't come across his neck in that very dangerous way.  He might have attained that height 3-4 months before we definitively tested; he's no slouch in the growth spurt department.

He'd gotten self-conscious about being a fourth-grader in a booster seat.  Sorry, kid.  Your parents love you and want to keep you safe.  No booster seats in the car feels momentous.  Heck, it's only been 13 1/2 years that we've had at least one version of a car seat in our car.  More than half our marriage.  More than three presidential terms.

A family at church that is not done making babies put out a call a week after we retired Teddy's seat to borrow a booster seat as their dominoes of booster-eligible kids just keep moving through the ranks.  Just like that, it went from in the car to out of the car to out of our house and our lives.  We told them to keep it.  We're not booster seat people anymore.