Babies don’t really have much to offer as conversational fodder. The younger the baby, the less there is to say about it. Thus, Baby Chit-Chat tends to expand upon one of the following themes:

1. Baby’s age

2. (in absence of pink or blue clothing) Baby’s gender

3. Baby’s size, in relation to age and gender

4. Baby’s cuteness (alternatively, if baby not cute, baby’s “alertness”)

5. (advanced topic, in rare event both parties are not yet bored by previous): Age-appropriate milestones that baby has reached

Minor is fat. This must come as a relief to all who approach us intent on idle conversation, for all remark upon it. They all use euphemisms: chubby, pudgy, hefty, “doesn’t look like he misses too many meals,” and “Jesus Christ, only six months?” But of course what they mean is “fat.”

I’m not offended by this conversational gambit. When you have an adopted child, your offensometer gets recalibrated so that only the most noxious of racial slurs will set it off. And he is fat. He is fat like an adult is fat. It’s not so much the delicious baby arm and leg rolls and the puffy cheeks, like Aitch used to have. Minor is solid, a baby constructed on John Goodman design specs. His belly hangs over his lap. His back is fat. His chin and jowls meet his chest, obscuring his neck. Each butt cheek is full and round, forming a wide base when he is seated. When I give him a bath, I have to marvel: he’s sort of breathtakingly fat.

(Full disclosure: Despite my awesome running regimen, I’m not so svelte myself. So please don’t construe my remarks as fattist.)

The doctor says not to worry about this, so I am not. Minor is still within normal bounds for his age and height. Like a lot of Korean babies, he was fed frequently, every two or three hours, so he is accustomed to eating frequently, but he only takes 4 to 6 ounces at a feeding. We’ve started him on baby food, which he loves, but he doesn’t consume a lot of it. He mouths everything; I’m not sure he distinguishes between things that happen to slide down his windpipe and those that don’t. I’m not sure where the tipping point is, where your kid goes from being a cute fat baby to a potential life-long combatant in the war on obesity. When should I worry?

For now, I’m just enjoying it. Cute and fat. How often do you hear that in life?