As you may or may not know, Carson is a freshman here at our local community college, this year. He's majoring in business and will transfer to Mississippi State, next fall, but we sure are enjoying having him home for this one last year. I don't write too much about Carson, because, sometimes, he's not all that excited to be my blog subject or, at least, he wasn't when he was younger. While Blair, on the other hand, has always been more than happy to be the topic. But, I got special permission to talk about Carson, today, so we better enjoy this while we can.

Carson, much to his dismay, comes from a line of late bloomers on Davis' side. Not only do they start growing later than most of their peers, but, even when they're all done, they don't really put up very big numbers. My daddy and brothers all measured/measure in at over 6' and Carson has hoped for years that those genes would come through for him, but he also has plenty of genes that could work against him in the height department...not just from Davis' dad's side, but my mother's, too.

Davis' dad joined the Air Force at the age of 18 (Carson's age now) and he was 5'3" and weighted 113 pounds. He grew 5 more inches over the next couple of years. Then, came Davis, who had to sit on a cushion in order to see over the steering wheel to take his driving test and graduated from high school at the same whopping 5'3" as his dad. He also grew 5 more inches in his college years. You're seeing the pattern here.

You know how guys start shooting up around the 9th grade. Well, all of Carson's friends started their growth spurts about then, too. Their legs got long and lanky and their bodies started to stretch out, over those high school years, leaving Carson in the dust. When he was learning to drive, we'd see people doing double takes as they thought they'd spotted an underage driver for sure. We'd think he was making some strides until he'd have friends over and we realized that, for every inch he grew, they'd grown four. Blair was always on the short side, too, but I never realized, until I had a son, how height is on a whole different concern level for boys than it is for girls. The taller his friends got, the more he'd ask us when he was going to grow. We'd measure him and mark it inside his closet, where we kept our unofficial growth chart. We'd make a big deal out of any vertical movement in the pencil marks, but he was never satisfied. There just wasn't enough space between those markings to suit him.

Despite Davis' empathizing pep talks about how he got through the long wait, himself, and even with doctors' assurances that he was just following the family pattern and would eventually grow, it did very little to satisfy him. We'd listen patiently as he'd vent his frustrations for the thousandth time. He'd step up to us, toe to toe, and try to gauge his progress by checking eye levels. He'd ask what vitamins he could take to make himself grow. He'd search the internet for foods he could eat to spark the coveted vertical growth. It was just a constant weight on his mind and, sometimes, I wanted to pull my hair out, honestly.

That is....until around the first of this year. Halfway through his senior year, Carson started falling asleep every time he'd sit down. On the floor. On the couch. A straight back chair. Riding in the car. Lights on. Lights off. People making noise. Didn't matter. He even fell asleep while we were enjoying an evening at the house of some friends. He was sitting in a chair and just leaned over the chair arm and, within a minute, was sleeping like a passed out drunk. He was doing that heavy, loud breathing, you know, like you do when you're really sleeping good. It got so ridiculous that I gave him a stern, "Carson! Wake up, son!" as I was afraid he was going to start drooling on their furniture. And you can't wake him. Forget it. You'd have more luck going to the cemetery and trying to rouse somebody down there.

Now, I know you're thinking...the boy has narcolepsy, but no. I'm all too familiar with how much boys sleep when they're growing. I grew up between two of those creatures. My younger brother practically slipped into a coma during those years. We thought his sheets would become grafted to his skin. After our concerned mother took him to the doctor, he found the problem to be that Lee had grown 6 inches in 8 months. Apparently, it really takes it out of you to grow like that.

And when Carson isn't sleeping, he's eating or asking what we're about to eat or what we have to eat or what we plan to eat in the future or what time we're going to eat or when we're going to buy more to eat. The light in our refrigerator is always shining like the star of Bethlehem. A beacon of hope and provision. One Chick-fil-A sandwich doesn't get the job done anymore. Forget having leftovers for tomorrow's lunch. And the boy can put away some milk, I'm here to tell you.

I also know, all too well, about how boys eat when they're growing. They are metabolic machines. My older brother ate like a pregnant goat on steroids. I know I've told y'all this before, but he's the reason I eat so fast to this day. You had a small window of time to take in your life sustenance before he devoured everything. It was a matter of survival just like on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. And I'd have to go to the grocery store with my mother to push the second buggy. One just didn't cut it when he was a teenager. Four gallons of milk sat in the child seat of the cart. Four. And things stuffed all up under the bottom of the cart. I remember, one night, we all went to bed with a new loaf of bread on the counter, leaving Zane up to watch TV. When we got up, the next day, there were 3 pieces of bread left. He'd made himself some sandwiches.

So, we didn't realize what all Carson's eating and sleeping was really adding up to until we were reminiscing and looking through wedding pictures on Blair and John Samuel's recent one year anniversary. What a difference a year makes.