Holy Napolean! My French husband is HUGE!

Ok, before you get too excited, I’ll have you know that I was referring to his height. (get your minds out of the gutter already!)

Anyway, let me explain: My husband David is 6ft 2 inches tall. That makes him a giant in this land of pint sized men. According to Google sources (and we know how reliable those are) The average French male is (173.1cm) 5 foot 8 inches tall. It appears that they are in fact some of the shortest men on earth. Only the Japanese (165.6 cm) and the Italians (172.2 cm) are smaller.

(My view from 5 feet 3 inches)

I am constantly amazed by the sheer size of my dear husband every time we have weekend dinners with his parents and I notice how teeny tiny they are. How on earth could two people that are small enough to fit into my airport carry-on bag breed and make a kid this big?

(David with his miniature French maman.)

To make his size matters worse, David used to be a cyclist, so he has the calves of a steroid-junkie rugby player. He is often unable to find shoes or pants that fit his generous proportions, and let’s not even get started on how long it takes to find this man a new suit. He almost had to wear a potato sack and a hemp rope belt to our wedding. We do all of his clothes shopping two times a year--once during the French “Soldes” period in the summer, and then again each time we visit the U.S., where quite frankly he is overjoyed to be considered “average” sized, if only for 7-10 days.

Just imagine our delight when 3 weeks ago we managed to find not one, but TWO pairs of pants that fit him. They are in fact quite perfect: low on the hip. Not to short in the rise, ample in the thigh & calf, and perfectly snug on the uhm...package. It was a miracle that we doubt will repeat itself any time soon. Sure, according to recent research, the French are getting bigger, well definitely fatter, but it seems retail fashion hasn’t quite caught up with this fact.

So for now, at night when I watch David sleep, and his eyeballs do that freaky little darting back and forth REM sleep thing, I know that he will be dreaming of America: land of the free... and the home of Banana Republic.