Sunday, March 31, 2013

Homage to Erma B

This is the second entry in a blogging challenge where I have decided to write blog entries about the everyday, posting first drafts of my writing for all to see...

HOMAGE TO ERMA B

My mother-in-law thinks I have the potential to be the Erma Bombeck of my age. Comedy does seem to run rampant in my life, like the recent incident where I was asked to pick a roommate for an upcoming conference and given a list of men from whom to chose. Now I realize "Angel" can be a tad ambiguous, but "Renee" is more straightforward... As a newspaper reporter, my potential gender might have been an asset. My "Angel R. Ackerman" byline could have been a man or a woman.

In real life, the situations that arise due to this can be very inconvenient. I once had a medical claim for a gynecological exam rejected by my medical insurance carrier because they insisted I was male. I think, or at least I hope, my doctor would have noticed that during the exam.

I also have pets: an escaping tortoise and three cats, one of which is a 17-pound cat that's afraid of his shadow and another grouchy 13-year-old cat that last week decided to poop on the middle of the bathroom scale.

Since having a daughter, the opportunity for humor has multiplied exponentially. She was 8.5 ounces at birth but grew very slowly throughout her preschool years. She grew steadily, and on a curve that pleased our doctor. She ate like a horse. Despite this, she didn't hit those average weight charts until she turned four. Suddenly, at age 4, she reached average!

At age six, she got a fat letter from the school. It wasn't a full fat letter, it just said my daughter had an increased risk of becoming overweight later in life and that I had to show this letter to the pediatrician. Now my pediatrician is old school. He laughed when I showed him this letter. The nurse took my daughter to the scale and checked her. Apparently, she had grown two inches since the school weighed her. And the weight-- it was exactly the same. So she had gained weight in preparation for a growth spurt, which had increased her BMI.

She was not fat or even at risk of being overweight.

And if you think that's bad, you should hear what happened with the dog bite two weeks ago. But that's another story for another day because it's Easter and my family expects me downstairs any minute...

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