Growing Pain

If a genie came to my house and offered me three wishes, I think that among my wishes would be the wish to have the metabolism of a 13-year-old boy.  Haha!  It seems like everything is growing on our 13-year-old Chase: growing upwards, growing muscles, growing limbs, growing appetite, etc.!  If you stand next to him for a while and don't make a sound, you can actually HEAR him growing. ;)

We took some more back-to-back pictures on July 3rd to document his growth, but I think that these pictures are kind of deceiving because his head was leaning back into mine and made him appear shorter.  According to our measurements, he is actually less than one inch shorter than me...or at least he was at the end of June when we were at the doctor for his scout camp check-up.

Maybe you noticed that bandage on his knee?  Well, that is just another example of Chase's "growing pain" this summer.  It seems that he has had more bad luck in terms of injuries and accidents than usual...maybe because he just isn't quite used to being so big!  This most recent one was a bike accident in which he really scraped and banged up his knee, so much so that we felt a visit to the instacare was in order just in case he needed stitches (he didn't, thank goodness).

OUCH!  This injury actually looks worse than it was.  That slice across his knee sealed up quickly and wasn't too deep.  But the road burn and gravel tattoo were both really painful!

At least he could still smile!

And how could he not smile with this concerned little cutie there to comfort him?

 And, like I said, I would love to have his metabolism right about now!  He has to eat, eat, eat to fuel all that growing.  But I'm still trying to keep him healthy and strong as he goes:

Can you believe this is the only picture I took on Independence Day this year?  This is my plate of grilled Southwestern Chicken with cheese, a tomato, black bean and cucumber salad, and grilled corn on the cob.  Add some chips and salsa, a big glass of milk, and a bowl of ice cream and you MIGHT have enough to keep Chase full for an hour.  Haha!

Then, Chase left home for a whole week for Scout Camp.  And I swear he grew a half inch while he was gone!  If he is wearing shoes and I'm not, he's definitely taller than me now.  WHAT?

Nate is crouching down on the car in this photo, taken at 5:15am on the day they were leaving for scout camp.  Don't they look clean and happy?

And here is Chase as he arrived home from Scout Camp.  I swear he grew so much taller in those 6 days!  I hope I can get some pictures from their camp and get Chase to blog about it for us.  I wonder what they were feeding him?