Growth spurts and stories

Now I get what you’re thinking; what do growth spurts and stories have in common. Ideally there is some growth in you because of them.

When you first get pregnant, the multitude of pregnancy apps will strive to keep you updated about the size of the growing baby in your belly. The apps tend to use fruit as examples, because most of the time we know roughly how big that piece of fruit is. Baby blueberry, then eventually a kiwi, then even bigger to a cantelope all lead up to the last one of a giant watermelon right before birth. (ever hear birth being described as trying to push a watermelon through a cat door? Yea, it’s not too far off from the truth)

But the whole time you’re incubating that growing fruit salad in your uterus, you’re excited to be able to have an idea about the growth of your child. It helps make a connection between you and the baby who’s helping other parts of you expand too, like your hands and feet swelling, or the lovely stretch marks that tend to occur in the strangest of places. Ya know, fun stuff.

Once the baby is born, their growth doesn’t stop. It sometimes seems as if you lay them down for a nap and later that day you look at them and their first tooth is poking through their gums. Then it’s just a matter of keeping up with the baby in their development, growth and how to keep them entertained now that banging on the pots and pans in the kitchen isn’t as fun as say, trying to use the gaming controllers as teether toys.

Our stories we share with each other can grow and change too. I used to come up with the coolest stories for my dolls where they’d go on crazy trips and get involved in historical dramas about Queens, royal families and even just going on crazy jungle adventures. (Yes, I know I’m a history nerd and I’m ok with that)

Even the stories we tend to share with other people change. Usually they change because our environment we’re in changes. I don’t think sharing your labor story around the water cooler Monday morning is exactly wise, but if you work at a birthing center, it might? You just have to know your audience.

So both our kids and and us telling stories about ourselves can have growth spurts. As you get older you learn that stories you used to share as a kid for either shock value or humor, may not be as appropriate or funny any more. The kicker is, you have to be aware of the audience and environment you’re in when sharing stories.

I used to share a story about how we’d call in our dogs, Daisy and Ditch, from the backyard and our neighbors might hear something different. (just think about it) At the time of sharing it, I thought it was risky and funny, but as I got older I realized it wasn’t something I wanted to share as much. It wasn’t as funny anymore. I had a story growth spurt.

Our kids have both kinds of growth spurts, where they seemingly overnight outgrow those $50 shoes you just ordered for them at Zappos as well as start to share stories about what happened at school instead of what happened between Mr. Stuffy and the aliens from Toy Story.

We also have growth spurts, they may be emotional or just a rethink of what we consider funny and appropriate. It’s a continual growth that we go through and sometimes it might be expensive (Zappos shoes) but ideally the end result is the development of a well-rounded individual who tailors their stories to appropriate scenarios while wearing Boys sized 3’s when they’re only 8.