Four feet and counting

No, that title doesn’t refer to the amount of snow we’ve gotten in Boston in the past month. (That would be seven feet and counting.) It’s about something far cheerier and that — bonus! — doesn’t cripple major public transportation systems. Not that I know of, anyway.

So. Last week was February vacation (because we totally needed more time off from school after 6 snow days in less than 3 weeks), and we spent a couple of days up in Maine, visiting my parents.

On one of those days, we braved 17-degree temperatures to take the girls snow tubing – something we’d never done before. I’d previously toyed with the idea of taking them somewhere for a skiing lesson, but once I tried to actually imagine it (dealing with rentals, dealing with the girls freaking out at how the boots felts and how hard it was to walk in them, dealing with the immense expense) I said screw that. I’d be doing shots in the lodge by 10 am. And I don’t even do shots.

With tubing, there are no rentals, no crazy moon-boots that are impossible to walk in if you’re a human being with ankle and knee joints, and little to no risk of tears of frustration – just big rubber tubes, a little magic carpet to ride up the hill, and a bunch of lanes to zoom down from the top. AND it was less than $80 for the four of us.

We also got to enjoy a mini-milestone for Clio: The deal at this place was, if you were under 4 feet, you had to go on a double-tube with an adult. But if you were over 4 feet, you needed to go on your own.

Guess who’s finally made the 4-foot mark?

She’s juuuust there. In fact, so “just” that they were OK with us doing the double-tube a couple of times at first, because Clio was feeling a little nervous about going on her own right off the bat. But the point was that she could go alone if she wanted to – and eventually she did.  It was the first time in two-and-a-half years that she wasn’t on the other side of the “you must be this tall to ride this amusement” line from her twin sister.

As I’ve written here in the past, even before she had cancer, Clio was shorter than Elsa. But she was never short in an absolute sense. Three years ago, at her last regular checkup before she was diagnosed, she was in the 70th percentile for height, at 44 inches.

But I got a look at her growth charts last time I took her to the clinic – it was at that momentous visit that she first clocked in at 48 inches – and she is now in the 15th percentile. Big drop, right? But that’s nothing. Know what percentile she was in exactly one year earlier? Below the 3rd percentile. Like, underneath all those lines on the growth percentile chart.

That’s what happens when you’re a young child who basically doesn’t grow for two years. You watch pretty much everyone else your age – including your beanpole twin sister – shoot up around you. And – more germane if you’re Clio — you don’t get to go on the Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios, but your sister does. Except that she doesn’t want to go on it, because she’s chicken. How unfair is that??

BUT, six months off treatment, with a head of ever-thickening hair, a rapidly improving gait and ever-building stamina, you GET TO TAKE YOUR OWN SNOW TUBE, DAMMIT!!

Of course, I’m far more excited about the fact that Clio is growing than she is. It’s a strange, sad thing to see your child not getting any taller. (I know, I know; how do you see something not happening? You just do). Healthy, thriving children grow. It’s just what they do. They can’t help themselves.  But sick children — and in particular children whose bodies are being filled with chemicals designed to stop cells from growing —  don’t grow. They stay in a developmental holding pattern.

But eventually, the lucky ones who get better (and we are so SO lucky) start growing again.

And Clio is growing again! We don’t know if she’ll ever get as tall as she might have if she hadn’t gotten cancer. But who the hell cares?

Welcome to 48 inches, big girl. From here, there’s nowhere to go but up.

P.S.  As for you, snowbanks….don’t get any ideas.