Big baby’s birth brings joy, jokes

A 14.1-pound baby was born in Mexico last week. There isn’t a single joke in this world that… A 14.1-pound baby was born in Mexico last week. There isn’t a single joke in this world that would be half as ridiculous as a 14-pound baby. Honestly, I tried, and nothing came close.

Antonio Vasconcelos, called “Super Tonio” by the locals, must have been incredibly uncomfortable during his nine months stuck inside his mother’s stomach. Now, with the help of a Caesarean section and a forklift, little Tony is happy, healthy and ready to leave a Cancun-area hospital.

I’ve seen the pictures, and this baby is huge. He’s almost two feet tall. He drinks 5 ounces of milk every three hours. He bench presses Honda Civics. He’s already gotten offers from every team in the National, Canadian and Arena Football Leagues to play offensive tackle. He has stubble on his chin and smokes cigars like they’re pacifiers. Jack Bauer, Chuck Norris and Samuel L. Jackson are all terrified of this kid.

He’s been alive for a week and has already gained a half-pound. If he keeps that up, he’ll weigh almost 40 pounds by his first birthday. He’ll be up to 143.5 at the age of five. By the time he’s legally allowed to drink alcohol in the United States, he’ll weigh 560 pounds. Luckily for him, he lives in Cancun, so he’s legal to drink once he’s strong enough to hold a beer bottle. That should happen within the next month.

In case you don’t realize how large a 14-pound baby is, let’s look at a few comparisons: At birth, Tony weighed as much as 56 McDonald’s hamburger patties. According to the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, 14 pounds of powder cocaine would cost somebody $319,782.62 in the year 2000. A regulation shot put ball for high school-aged athletes is 12 pounds, and bowling balls usually only weigh up to 16. The only person unhappy about this child’s birth is the mother’s chiropractor.

Though he is big, he’s not even the biggest. Two years ago last month a 16-pound, 11-ounce child was born in Salvador, Brazil. Some sources say that this Brazilian kid chuckled when he heard about Antonio, then went on to devour an entire heard of cattle without chewing. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest baby ever born to a healthy mother weighed in at 22 pounds, 8 ounces in Italy in 1955. He spent much of his life serving as the counterweight that held up the leaning tower of Pisa.

There have been bigger, but I’m pretty sure that not too many people have gone through the same things that Antonio’s mother, Teresa Cruz, has gone through. Seven years ago, Cruz gave birth to Tony’s older sister, a lightweight at 11.5 pounds. That’s 25.5 pounds of total baby that has come out of that woman. If you do the math, and you know I have, if she continues on this trend, her next child will weigh 17.29 pounds, and the next one will be over 21. Maybe, for her sake, this family should turn to adoption if they want any more kids.

I was less than 5 pounds when I was born. My grandmother told my parents that I wasn’t big enough to make a decent roast. Antonio, on the other hand, could feed a family of four for a week. My mother, a former obstetrician, told me that the largest baby she ever delivered was 11 pounds. She said she needed a weight belt and a complex pulley system to pull him out.

This may not seem like a very important story, but it’s bigger than you might think. With all the killing and fighting going on in the world today, what’s wrong with a column that celebrates life and nature’s miracles every once in a while? Bringing a child into this world is a beautiful thing, especially if the kid is the size of a medium-sized dog. If a baby’s birth cannot bring together warring nations, then what will?

It may not seem like it now, but Antonio’s birth could mark a new era in history. For all we know, this kid could grow up to be the next Yao Ming or Incredible Hulk. One day you may see a man named Vasconcelos traveling through the forest wearing all flannel with a giant blue ox, chopping down great sequoias with single swings from his axe. Either that, or he’ll be an accountant. It could go either way.

No matter what he ends up as, he’ll always be known as “Super Tonio,” the giant baby from Mexico.

Email Sam at seg23@pitt.edu with your birth weight. He’s just curious.