Here's a little archeological/anthropological artifact that sort of represents my ambivalence to the whole enterprise that is keeping family memories.
See it there on the left? Just inside the room? For some reason I forgot to tell you about it that time I gave you a pantry tour.
It's our kids' growth chart. Even from here you can tell it's a mess.
I find that I feel, and have always felt, that the archival things I do are temporary. That I'm not quite ready to commit to a certain photo album or scrap book. That recording something is a futile effort. This is partly related to the perfection syndrome, also known as the “If Only” complex.
If Only we were already in our dream house! If Only I knew the perfect way to do this! If Only I could be sure that I wouldn't scorn my efforts later! Throw in a little snobbery in not wanting to do things the “normal” way, along with hating to spend money on something I think is ugly or impractical for a big family, and you have it: Nothing at all.
So this particular thing just happened, borne of the pressing urge of the moment to record the height of a growing person. It's not a complete record, for the above reasons, but it's close. I'm sure that at some point in rentals along the way, we did pencil in some of the older kids' early heights on a door jamb, but it wasn't until we moved to our house in the suburbs in the late 80s that we settled on this board for our markings.
It's a board that enclosed the chimney stack that ran up through the pantry in that house. Somehow it seemed like a good place. Not a place that anyone thought to give a coat of paint, but not bad.
I'm glad, because when it came time to move, my husband had the brilliant idea to unscrew the board (see why a wall wouldn't have been as good?), marking the height off the floor carefully, and transplant it to our new house here. I have no idea what the new owners did about the missing panel, although they were cheerful about whatever it was, I know that. They are very nice.
Rosie is as tall as Mom (but then gets taller). |
The careful researcher will note the entry “Chris,” presaging interlopers of the future. |
Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and post a million pictures of this loveliness.
Top left, “Deirdre, Merch 12” |
At first he was the one to make the measurements — I guess because when the subject came up (that is, when a small person wanted to know how tall he was and suddenly, jumping up and finding out was imperative) — I was likely too pregnant or nursing to want to move. He's the first one to admit that his penmanship isn't the greatest.
But in a big family, people take things into their own hands when they feel you aren't moving quick enough. So what was not really my idea of an aesthetic way to do things quickly became something that had a life of its own.
It drove me quite crazy that they would get the urge to measure themselves and then just have at it! No agonizing! No thought! Obviously certain areas are going to overlap as kids grow, which is why you have younger kids' heights above older kids'. Wouldn't a more orderly reckoning, perhaps with one person's handwriting, however unrefined, represented, make for a better design?
You can track the progression of one certain child's ability to form the letters of her name in advancing degrees of orientation. Clearly not satisfied with what she had done, she felt the need to enhance. *
Others followed suit.
Here we have son (top) and father (bottom) not in agreement as to spelling. We go with the former's rendition, in case you were wondering.
Even the dogs had to be represented.
It's science.
“Trooper” |
“Tootsie” |
At some point I lost all control, if I ever had any. Mere hangers on, friends passing through, began to see some virtue, or at least hilarity, in leaving for posterity their names and heights.
These are grown men now, some with families of their own. Yet a little something of themselves will forever be entwined in the Lawler family record. Until someone sensibly takes this down and burns it, that is…
I wonder when that will be?
I feel like this is all very 70s of us. Yet I have no idea how I would do it differently if I could start over!
Do you keep a growth panel at your house?
*Deirdre reminds me that our next door neighbors had two girls who practically lived at our house. One of them was also named Deirdre! And of course, she had to add herself to the mix! So that's why there are so many Deirdres on there… Funny, I had forgotten. I guess that's why we do these things!
Sandie says
I love that it's screwed to the wall and can leave with you if you ever move! We rent our home and have a spot on the wall where we mark the kids, but I'm always a little sad when we do it because it won't be able to come with us very easily. My husband says he's going to cut it out of the wall and repair it, but I love what you have better! It's even more beautiful for all the scribbles. Yours is very real, and that's just what it should be 🙂
LeeAnn Balbirona says
Yes! We started one when we moved in to our first house. But I put a limit on it…no drawing on the wall unless it's your birthday…though we make exceptions for half birthdays and sometimes quarter birthdays if the half birthday got forgotten. We finally painted the kitchen six years later and I had the painters paint around the growth chart. The grubby white wall and smudged and half-erased marks sometimes drive me a little bonkers but in a good way. 🙂 We've started measuring other relatives as they come to visit so the kids can compare. Haven't added any friends to the wall yet, but perhaps someday. Speaking of the 1970s, a house I lived in as a little girl had an entire kitchen wall (painted bright orange) dedicated to graffiti. The previous owners had written telephone messages all over the wall in black marker.
Becka says
We had a growth panel when our children were small and one time I came into the room to see my (then) young son marking the height of his stuffed animal on the wall!
Trish says
We do!! In our old house there was a skinny little end of a wall in the kitchen where I marked the growth of the first three when we moved in. And added 3 more after that.
Then one day we decided to paint the kitchen and HE PAINTED OVER IT ALL!!!! It's a wonder I allowed him to live.
By then, some of the kids had grown up, moved out and started families of their own. So I started over just inside the closet door of each kids room.
And when we moved last year, I bought a piece of wood and transferred each marking over to the new “measuring stick” which is now installed in our new pantry.
We'll probably never move again. But if we do, that stick is coming with us.
Kimberly says
Yep! It's on a wall, we live in a rental, a board would have been a great idea, nope we used the wall. I've thought that I might have to tear out the plasterboard in that area when we move {ha ha}
Patty says
I totally forgot that we used to do this when I was growing up! What a great idea to have a panel and take it with you. I think we'll be renting/not-in-a-place-we-own forever. This is brilliant, completely un-aesthetic and wonderful!
Kate says
For me this really is a foreign anthropological artifact. My parents would never have written on walls or doorjams in the house. My father did in the workshop, using the unpainted drywall as a large notepad. I guess they classified it with graffiti, something to be discouraged in a civilized household. The family doctor and the school nurse provided those numbers and they were tucked away with our school photos. I don't have a gowth panel and neither do any of my siblings at their homes, so I guess the “do not write on painted walls” training is firmly ingrained.
womanofthehouse says
I like it! Just the way it is! It has a story to tell. We keep heights on a door jamb, but of course we can't take that with us when we move, so we transfer the markings to a piece of tractor feed paper. It's not nearly as satisfying as your board, though. I wish I had thought of that.
Corrie says
I love this line: “Yet a little something of themselves will forever be entwined in the Lawler family record.” There is something so much more than simple memories and charting growth here- I love the chaos of it! It is life. I am starting this in our new house tomorrow. Thank you for sharing this.
_Leila says
Um, yeah, we didn't “think of that” — it just happened that way! It all just happened!
Tracy says
We have a metal cabinet that has been used for the part 5 years as a growth chart (I can't remember what we did before that??) I have wanted to move said cabinet, but there is nowhere else in the house it can go and have that same side exposed ~ so it stays.
Cary says
When our children were really young, we had a “growth chart” and I'm glad we did because we moved and I was able to take it with us. We now, for the past 10 years have used the post (support beam) in our basement for marking height. Our tradition has been to measure (and weigh) the kids on New Year's Day. There are plenty of times, however, throughout the year that we back someone who is looking “longer and leaner” up to the post to see if they've grown since the Jan. 1st!
I do love your board and I love that friends have been added and the kids writing their own names, what a treasure.
Mirissa says
We've marked up the door in the kids' bathroom in pencil. Things were coming along pretty well when we had house cleaners clean the whole thing off! My poor, sensitive oldest has never really gotten over it. Now we're using sharpie, but I love the idea of a board.
Anne says
Oh! I love it! (How hilarious that your guests measured themselves!!)
MamaHen says
We do this at my house too! And ours is pretty messy also, but that is us.
Sue says
The family that owned our cabin before us had started doing that, but then sold it to us five years later. I loved that idea, and kept meaning to measure our kids and add to it, but, alas, I kept forgetting. It's now three years later. I, too, do best with “it just happened.”
We never contemplated doing anything like that in our apartment, even though we own it, because we have been talking about moving out of there and into a house for roughly… 13 years. :o)
Shawna says
This is something we do. We started in my mom's laundry room when we lived in a temporary home and she painted a board to move the little lines onto, but she passed away before she did so. I don't know if we'll get them now. At our new home the children joyfully participate in this ritual as often as they can, so ours is rather chaotic. They insist that even the baby at 6 months take part.
Mamabear, JD says
We did this in the laundry room at our old house – and I loved that house so much that I thought we would raise all of our kids there….but then we moved, and I had to leave it behind because it was on the wall! I was too tired from being pregnant and Mommy and showing the house to trace it on to paper before we left. But mine are still young enough that we need to find a board and have at it. We can still do this and it will still be great, thanks for the post!
p.s. You are so right about kids and their sense of urgency in measuring!
Jennifer says
We started recording the kids' heights on a doorjamb shortly after moving into our current house. We've painted around it, it's been smudged beyond readability in some parts, the kids decided to use permanent marker and large letters at one point….it bugs me and I love it — all at the same time!
liz says
We also have a growth chart on the wall. It is on the woodwork separating the kitchen and living room – not the best place for it, but it works! I told my husband that if we ever move, we're going to have to rip it out to take with us – guess we can't move then!
Deirdre says
I would just like to note that the very careful researcher will also be aware that all those “Deirdre”s do not necessarily belong to me. If you look closely, you'll see that some are marked “Deirdre D.” Deirdre D. was our next door neighbor and my best friend (we were absolutely inseparable) when we lived in that house. She's represented on there many times. Obviously, I was an enthusiast during a certain period of my life — but let's just be fair and recognize that there was more than one little Deirdre throwing her name up there!
_Leila says
HAHA! I forgot about that! You are right! Good old Deirdre D!
Kathleen Jaeger says
Yes, we have a growth chart on the back of the laundry room door. I had seen one of these at someone's house before we had kids. Loved the idea. Kept waiting for a good time, the perfect way. And then one day…presto…we just put it on something and did it and record there every so often!!
I, too, love the chaos, the representation of life, including the friends that included their names. Love it!
Amy says
We've moved so often that we don't have one that 'spans the ages'. And then, two years ago we were painting our living room (actually hired someone to do it), and painted over the marks. It was our own fault but we felt so badly for our kids.
Kim says
This nearly brought tears to my eyes it is so beautiful. Truly! I so relate to being paralyzed by perfectionist tendencies and have vowed to renew my albums this yr regardless of how they look. We still love the old ones. No growth charts here. Wish we had! We have moved 14 times in 26 yrs and somehow that sort of thing just got lost in the shuffle.
jenletts says
Someone gave me a self-stick wall chart at my daughter's baby shower so we were able to take it with us through our many, many moves, though we kinda slacked off when we moved to the boat. No straight up and down walls to stick it to! A friend who raised her kids on a sailboat too scratched their info onto the mast. I thought that was the coolest thing ever but my daughter by that time was taller than me so we didn't do it.
Pippajo says
I sincerely hope that NO ONE will EVER take it down and burn it! Never, never, never! It is absolutely beautiful, just as it is!
We never did a growth chart of any kind, but there was one wall down in Dad's work area in the basement that was plain old sheet rock and at some point, we girls took it over as a graffiti wall. Just before Mom and Dad moved out five years ago, we stood down there, cramped in that little room in the bowels of the house, reading the years' worth of jokes, insults, crushes' names and occasional philosophical musings recorded there. We laughed until we cried and then we cried because we were leaving all the memories behind. If one of us could have taken that wall with us, we would have. How smart of you to have a portable record. And don't you ever let anyone burn it!
Renee says
I have one in our classroom, which has unvarnished paneling. It looks almost exactly like yours, for almost the exact same reasons. I still have lots of years to go, so mine will only get worse, and more dear.
Celine says
We bought screen moulding–one piece for each kid (5 so far). They each get measured only on birthdays and half-birthdays. I blogged about it here, when we only had 4.
http://justgotobed.blogspot.com/2008/04/growing-t…
Mrs. Pickles says
I love your wall!! It is so homey and unique! I love the fact that it's removable. Now you can start marking grandchildren on it!! I was inspired to re-mark the faded entries on our own wall so I can post about it next week. 🙂 When I was growing up we had a doorway in our kitchen on which my mom marked all our heights for our birthdays (or sometimes quite a few months later). I remember it was a Big Deal when I passed five feet. Then when I was a teenager, some well-meaning friends helped us repaint our kitchen, and they wrinkled their nose at our messy wall (they have a pristine pastel house). So we bowed to pressure and painted over it, but not before my mother took a long roll of paper and copied every single marking. I don't know if she ever rewrote them back on. I wish we hadn't painted it over in the first place. Sure, it would be glaringly out of place, but it was family history. Kids are less sensitive to aesthetics. 🙂
Breanna says
Yep, we had a growth panel. I want to start one with my kids, now that two out of three can stand on their own.
The growth panel in my parents' house has the dogs on it, too, as well as an imaginary sibling named Turbo whom we blamed for everything.
_Leila says
Oh! Now my whole family is jealous that we have the dogs and the random passers-by but not the imaginary friends!! Why didn't we think of that!!
Carlie says
I got a little sticker chart thingie for measuring growth but yours is way cooler and so much more classic and old school. I think I'll throw my sticker thing out. Time for a thin white board that can live at our house.
Love how absolving you are about the obsessive pressure to scrapbook and momento-ize the living daylights out of parenthood. I am not much into that sort of thing but I have all this ridiculous guilt about not participating.
_Leila says
Carlie — old school! That's the idea I was trying to get at. ~LOL~ and of course absolution. Excellent.
Serena in WI says
We are only the second owners of our 1940's house, and inscribed on the door of the front hall closet is the former families growth chart from the 40's-60's. I don't think I will ever paint over that spot because it helps me feel such a connection to that family, and it makes me happy to think of children in a completely different time running around our house and yard.
For our daughters we have a long thin piece of trim that we bought expressly for the purpose. We haul it out on b-days (or as remembered…) and measure the two of them , each has their own side and the date is carefully written legibly on it (I have moments of archival perfection surrounded by swirling chaos). I love looking at it to remind myself how much has changed over the past few years….
Laura S. says
I’m just sitting here in bed at night and came across this old post… I laughed until I cried and could hardly breathe… My husband is concerned, I think!