Guess My Age

Our screen saver is set to randomly shuffle through all the photos stored in our computer. I find myself evaluating Sage’s age in each picture based on a single aspect of her appearance: the status of her hair. If her hair is less than ½ inch and adorned with a small bow glued to her forehead [washable Elmer’s], she was less than a year. If her hair is between 1-2 inches and very flyaway and mullet-like, she would have been 1-2 years. [I was pregnant and uncoordinated. Cut me some slack.] If she has uneven bangs (ask Mark) and short curly hair that is always in two top pigtails, she’s sure to have been 2-3 years. If her hair is a total rat’s nest with a few yogurt dreadlocks and the 3-day-old hairdo is matted down with a fresh spray of water and some clips, she’s bound to be 3 years old, with opinions about everything, and vocal cords the size of Manhattan to decry parental abuse during hair fixing time.

Sage, 3 months

I find myself evaluating my own screen saver appearance by my size of stomach in each picture. Over the last 4 years (two pregnancies), my body weight has followed the rise and fall of a mathematical sine curve. The period isn’t 2 pi, but rather 2 years. 9 months to inflate with baby Sage, 15 months to deflate. 9 and 15 more for baby Eliza, and I’m back to pre-motherhood weight…(I only made the 15 month cut this time thanks to a little cryptosporidium parasite I picked up last month). You'll notice that the only pictures I post of myself will be at local minimums (right before I get pregnant), and local maximums (when I'm an obviously pregnant woman), and definitely no in betweens. : )

Janel, 9 months pregnant

[Lest you wonder why my email is jwsquared, I’ll reveal a bit of math nerdiness about myself: I’m actually trying to construct a sine curve that will literally approximate my weight over the last four years. I’ll get back to you on that. Focus!]

How to estimate Mark’s age in each picture? By his haircuts. A great haircut meant we were in the first year of our marriage. He went to the barber while I worked up courage to learn to cut hair. A 1/16” haircut: 2^nd year of marriage. Mark is a very forgiving, generous husband, who learned how to wear hats during this year of marriage. Most notable cut of this period: the week of our first daughter’s baby blessing. Does Photoshop have a Rogaine feature?

A haircut where Mark’s crazy cowlick sticks out: Well, this could be any time. Mark’s right-side cowlick is the bane of my stylist dreams, even after 5 years of marriage.

Sage's baby blessing

Eliza’s age can be best estimated by her weight. At 2 months old, she was a chunky little butterball. She then began her descent into the tenth percentile, where she happily resides now, the little waif. While Eliza's height (in percentile) has always stayed constant around y=75, I think her percentile weight could be described with a linearly decreasing function like y= -40t+50. Approximately, of course. Please don't extrapolate the data to find when y=0 (Eliza's weight) in such an equation. Maybe there's a reason I don't write math book questions...

Eliza, 14 months