height charts

it was 2008 & my parents had just finished a remodel of their entryway & front room. the job was finished. the painters came. my mom is not normally one to hire painters. she does everything better than everyone so she usually would have done it herself.

let me backtrack. we always measured our height on the same door frame all growing up. with each move my mom would get a long, skinny piece of wood & transfer the markings to a door frame in the new house.

see where this is going? heartbreak town. i bet you my mom will cry just reading this post. yup. those mindless painters ignored signs & tape & verbal warnings & painted directly over almost 30 years of hodgman kid growth. ensue devastation. my mom & i tried everything. paint thinner, sanding, you name it.

there were tears. lots of tears. even by us offspring.



not long after that i had someone's height of my own to measure. with the wounds still fresh, my first mother's day my mama commissioned a lady who had given me this darling painted stool to make this...

< attached was a note sprinkled
with a harsh word or 2 about ignorant
painters.

> the next year 

i had the same artist make these:

if you didn't know, e is always yellow & c is always lavender.

i love them all cozy in their corner of the nursery. how fun would it be to get the same lady for any subsequent height charts at our house?

& since ellery is exactly 2 1/2 years old today we marked a new spot at exactly 3 feet tall! cossette will get her first mark in 12 days! exciting!!

"you have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was."
-abraham lincoln