That's because jQuery doesn't animate the padding and margin, you have to do that yourself. You can see a similar issue on the jquery.com main page, with the little demo. It jumps right at the start, when it first becomes visible, probably because of margins. I don't know why it would only occur at the end of the slideDown animation, though.
- [jQuery] jQuery Effects (show, hide, slideUp, slideDown...)... Yuval
- [jQuery] Re: jQuery Effects (show, hide, slideUp, slid... Ambient.Impact