I'm Still Down Here

Hi again--I wrote about myself a little over 3 years ago. I'm 35 inches tall and weigh 33 pounds (currently) and am now 42 years old.

I married a TV weatherperson named Carla Carr who had three kids from her previous marriage--all bigger than me. Now they're even more huge.

Patrick, the oldest, is almost 16 and up to 6'1". He's got his learner's permit now to drive (I'm too short to do that). His size 15 feet are over twice as long as mine and from my viewpoint, it almost seems like his head touches the ceiling. 15-year-old Andrea is 5'9", and Kevin is now 11 and 4'9". Imagine having kids who seem 9 to 12 feet tall to you!

It's bizarre. The next door neighbors have a toddler who's an inch or two shorter than me. He'll curl up on his mom or dad's lap and doze off. I can curl up on one of my KIDS' laps and take a nap! They're all great kids and so protective of me. Somehow I think the fact that I'm so small makes them love me all the more.

Yes, I'm down here. I'm STILL down here, folks. Martin Rowley, all 2'11" of him. Outweighed by kids, or even dogs. Needing to be carried upstairs (OK, sometimes I kinda crawl up the stairs on all fours) because the steps are almost as high as my knees. I'm a proportional, or pituitary dwarf, by the way. The hormones that most kids get at puberty never showed up, and my growth was retarded to the Nth degree.

I actually look very young, too, and often people mistake me for being a kid. I debate myself sometimes, wondering if it's best to tell people how old I am, or let them think I'm a kid. When I talked to you before, I mentioned how the 12 year old boy gave me trouble while my son was using the porta-potty. The kid said to me, "Hey, it's the lil' daddy," and made a joke about my size. He wouldn't have known I was an adult if he didn't see me talking with my kids and how they called me daddy, etc. So he recognized me, and took advantage of the situation, pushing me down on the ground and holding me down with his titanic sneakered foot.

When an adult (an average sized one) spotted us, he stopped it--and was amazed to find out that I was a "dad". OK, so I'm toddler sized and have no beard and a voice so high I could be a cartoon character. OK, so I'm unable to father children of my own due to the hormone deficiency (though I do have kids, through marriage). OK, so I have to stand on a chair to look an 8 year old in the eye. But I'm still a man, a college graduate and graphic designer. A loving father and husband. Just because I'm small, that doesn't mean I need to put up with some bratty kid who gets his jollies over the fact that he's almost two feet taller than a "grown-up".

It ain't easy bein' me.

Well, sometimes it is. It's great having a huge family to love. I feel so warm and protected. Rollin' in my sweet baby's arms...that is, in the arms of the lovely Carla. I feel a bit of a mother's love with her, but also the passions of an adult relationship. And to my kids, I'm their little-brother-sized daddy. It's not easy keeping kids in line when they tower over you. But my kids love me so much and don't want to cause any trouble. They behave. Mostly.

As if I didn't have enough kids to deal with, I started coaching a Little League baseball team. 11 and 12 year olds. And yes, as with many such coaches, my own son was among the players. 11 year old Kevin Rowley, 22 inches taller than his Dad (and weighing 2 and a half times as much). It's odd to see me in the dugout; I'm so small that when I stand up and they're sitting on the bench, I still have to look up slightly to look them in the eye. I dread the possibility that I may have to break up a brawl someday. Some of these kids are d**n close to 6 feet tall and 150 pounds (others are more like 4'7" and 75 pounds).

And kids these days are so much stronger than before, or at least they're...fatter. All those candy bars, sodas, and pizzas (no wonder some of them are getting diabetes). Even though they're active in playing baseball, they're still wayyy too chunky, methinks.

Just last week I saw the catcher for the other team. They probably called him "Pudge". My guess was he was about 5'4", maybe 180 pounds. And just 11 or 12! He towered over me and blocked out the sun. I tried to restrain myself from asking if the boy had his own ZIP code.

The game over, and people head home; any minute my wife is expected to pick me up. I stride to home plate and look over to first base. I'm so small that even the reduced difference of Little League-- 60 feet to each base, not 90-- seems gargantuan.

I'm smaller than major league softball players or weekend softball enthusiasts. Smaller than Babe Ruth League or Little League players.

Gasp--smaller than the wee kids in T-ball.

-----


How many 42 year old men ride in baby seats (OK, KIDDIE seats) in the car? I do.
----- I talk online to different people, some of whom are Big People like you who are fascinated with being small. One, though, is kind of like me, only 18 years younger. Same height and roughly the same weight, though. Surviving in the world of giants.

Hey Sam, I tell him. Being three feet tall is no picnic but you can still accomplish much. I have a wonderful wife and family, a job, hobbies like Little League, and so much more.

He emails me a cartoon of him drawn by a 5'9", 270 pound man who imagines himself smaller. "I'm the fox and he's the raccoon," Sam says.

"Guess what he told me? He said size doesn't matter if you're cool."

Amen. ----

I dream that I've gone through a strange warp and wound up on a planet similar to Earth, except--what's this? I'm the same size as everyone! I can look adults in the eye, and reach DOWN to turn a doorknob. My wife is a couple inches shorter than me, and my kids are actually SMALLER!

Hmm. That would be fun.

But so is my real life, for the most part. Huge people in my life love me very much, and I love them too.

My body is small, but my heart is big.

Oh, and I still AM down here

END