Ode to the chub.

My mother was a small woman and I was a nine-pound, ten-ounce vaginal birth baby.

It’s fine, you can say it. I was a fat kid. A pan full of dinner rolls had nothing on me or my belly.

Sorry, Mom.

Obviously, I was far too young to recall a single thing from those precious few years of my childhood. The pictures, however, believe me when I say that they tell a tale of their own.

It was clear that for each one, I was either perfectly propped up so that my own weight would keep me centered and anchored in place, or the camera caught me on my way to a face flop due to a failed proper prop. I used to smile a lot, but you could barely tell because my heavy cheek jowls kept my frowning mouth shape in check.

I didn’t know how much fun I was until I had kids of my own, both fat babies in their own right.

My daughter was first. I knew based on the first two words out of the doctor’s mouth when she was born that she was plump.

plump. adjective. slightly fat in a fairly pleasant way.

“Holy sh*t,” he said just loud enough for everyone to hear as he confidently accepted the initial responsibility of the bowling ball with limbs and neck-less head at the time.

I was proud, she weighed the same as I did when I was born. It was like we’d started our own club and she didn’t even know it yet.

Whether it was squeezing her into the kitchen sink for a bath, being stuck on her back unable to roll over, or being beached on the living room carpet face down. Tons of fun. I use the term beached to define her lying there with her belly preventing any hand or foot from touching the floor and gaining any traction toward an out-of-reach teething ring.

She. Wasn’t. Moving.

Fat kid.

A few years later it was my son’s turn. Bets were to be placed before the all-clear was given by the doctor and not a minute later. I don’t think anyone was even close. It’s almost like he let his sister go first so that he could see what he had to beat and win a prize.

Ten pounds, three ounces. Are you kidding me?

That kid basically popped out and asked where the f*cking fridge was.

I knew right then that it was going to be Lorna Doones by the case, and that sh*t wasn’t cheap. I’d say winner, winner, chicken dinner, but he’d have eaten that, too.

Let’s just say that the word Cheerio coming out of his mouth wasn’t him bidding you farewell. It was him sending you off to the kitchen to get a box. His hands were like little balloons and he could only palm two or three of the tiny, donut-shaped cereal bites at once before they all fell to the floor on the way to his lips.

With an extra nine ounces on him, he could easily take a few more cold and flu hits than my daughter or I could have at the same respective time in our lives.

Fat kid.

They both laughed all the time. You know, that happy, belly laugh that could only come from a kid that actually had one.

They were fun.

They’re all grown up now. No remnants of the pudginess that they wore so well from birth up through being toddlers. I was guilty of losing it all, too as a child. But if I look really close, there’s still a spark of it when they smile.

My beautiful roly-poly babies. If I listen, I can still hear their little voices saying, “Hey Dad, get me a cookie, and grab me a juice box while you’re in there.”