Pipsqueak.

At Marley's seven-year well-visit, her pediatrician reminded me, again, that Marley is a tiny bundle of muscle and energy, and she needs more help to get bigger.  As in heavier, and taller.  Which made me remember that months earlier, her pediatric endocrinologist had told me the same thing.  Both doctors want her, for example, drinking whole milk and Carnation Instant Breakfast.  And I think after her endocrinologist gave me that advice in June, it faded away soon after I wondered out loud whether whole milk would fill her up so much that she would eat even less food than she already did.  At that time, I was also in the midst of a bounty of summer vegetables from our CSA and our own tiny garden patch, thinking that we got gotten healthy eating down.  That we were all set.  And then when school started, I noticed that Marley needed new jeans because her old ones looked too short.  I thought we were fine.  According to her growth chart, though, not so much.

It was after Marley and I had rattled off a list of her favorite foods that her pediatrician looked at me and said, "I'm not hearing enough protein."  True, I thought, suddenly feeling not so healthy after all.  And so, for the past few weeks, I've been replacing the buttered pasta in Marley's lunchtime thermos with: bacon and eggs, rice and beans, and a couple of mornings, straight-up links of breakfast sausage.  There's always a gallon of whole milk in our fridge now, and instead of just pretzel sticks, it's pretzel rods and a tablespoon of chocolate-peanut butter for dipping.  We add Carnation to her chocolate milk in the morning, and she gets an extra chocolate milk after school.

I want you to picture an extended training montage, and replace the shots of focused and determined workouts with images of Marley eating bacon and me pulling a sheet pan of roasted chickpeas out of the oven.  Marley spooning up a cheesy egg and me sprinkling Carnation Instant Breakfast in cup after cup after cup after cup.  Because the weigh-in is in February, and I would like us to win a heavyweight title.