Lots has happened for us this past two weeks. A. has turned two, we have reinstituted a routine to calm his anxiety about anything "new", he has been moved up to his new class (which is a whole other topic) and we took him for his two year check up yesterday afternoon.

This was no small feat - because I'm still unsure of the pediatricians in our small town, we drove an hour each way to take him to the pediatrician he's seen since we moved back to the area.

All in all, he is healthy and she remarked how amazing it is to see him only once in a couple of months compared to once every week or two like last year. (Yes, dear readers, every week or two - from the end of January 2005 to the end of March, he saw her 15 times!)

He seems to be developing properly and all in all she remarked that she won't need to see him until he's 3.

That is, until W. asked the question that I told him I didn't want him to ask. "Doctor, do you think A. is obese?"

There, I wrote it - if I hadn't processed the whole thing about 97 times in my head, I'd probably start crying again as I write this.

W. has been hearing all of this stuff on the news about children of A.'s size being obese, and for him it was a question about size. For me, it called into question all of my abilities and skills as a mother. It churned up deeply all of my own issues and fears with food. It made me feel like the worst mother in the world.

Now, the doctor's response was, "He's actually evening out (he's over 100% on both height and weight) and his rate of growth in weight is slowing down while he's growing in height at an enormous pace. And I don't like diets for kids - they don't work and that is actually not our problem. Our problem is that our children are often more sedentary than were those in the pioneer era. When he gets old enough, put him in soccer or swimming and make sure he gets plenty of time to play and you'll be good."

What I heard? "You are a careless mother who lets your child eat crap." So then I translated it into, "And you don't make him brush his teeth enough or get enough sleep and by golly he's even playing with knives! Running with scissors! You let him run his own bath water then leave him in there to scald himself! Oh, then I just got started when I began switching this to my job and marriage..."

Yeah, I know, this is stuff of therapeutic proportions.

The interesting thing is that A. really doesn't eat a lot of junk food - although he LOVES 'nandy. When he wasn't saying much last Fall, he looked at me and clear as day said, "Brownie?" at a Sunday night supper with the students.

Generally, though, he eats fruits and veggies and bread - not a big meat eater, but loves pasta and such. He'd rather eat broccoli than a chicken nugget any day.

And he's not sumo-wrestler big, although at 43 pounds and almost 37 inches tall, he is a big guy.

So, if she didn't see any problem and just told us to keep doing what we are doing, why did I immediately hit the "I'm the worst mother in the world?" spot?

A friend told me that weight is not an emotional issue for men - W. had no idea that his question was going to bring up so much for me. He said, "I wanted to know so if there was a problem we could fix it." I think what I heard was, "You have destined him for your life of diets and scales, of negative body images and counting points, of feelings of shame and struggle all over if you should drink that Dr. Pepper."

Strangely enough, if W. would have said the word "overweight" it wouldn't have been so emotionally charged. There is just something about the word "obese" that sends me to a place that I dare not wish to go. And for those who don't struggle with this, I'm not sure they - or W. - could ever get it.

This is Lenten in that it feels like the darkness of Good Friday. Oh, how I hope for Easter.