Claire and I played Candyland today. That's one thriller of a game. While we were playing it she pointed out a picture that I have on a shelf in my office. It's me a few years back repelling from 300 feet off the Euromast tower in Rotterdam.
She asked me what I was doing. I explained that I had a little adventure with my friend Dagowin and we climbed down a very big building.
"Why?"
"It was fun"
"How big was it?"
"Three hundred feet"
There was a long pause. She was processing, her little CPU running somewhere near 98%. Then she pointed at the picture, and then pointed at me.
"That's silly daddy. Buildings don't have feet."
She had a good point, but I was not to be deterred by it. I went into my toolbox and pulled out a tape measure. I tried to make all of this relevant to her by showing her how tall she is, which is spot on at three feet right now. I showed her the one foot markers on the measuring tape, explained that she was three of them, and that the building I climbed down from was three hundred of those feet. We then had a long and intricate conversation about how feet were a unit of measurement in addition to being something attached to your leg. I'm convinced that she retained only enough of it to be really confused.
She looked up and through the ceiling.
"Is three hundred foots higher than a boat?"
I should explain, we have a climbing wall in our basement. Most of the holds are standard jug handle big grip holds, but a few are shapes. Those shapes are goals. The highest shape on the wall is a little green boat.
"Yes, it's much higher than a boat"
She gave up on staring through the ceiling and sat down. Claire proceeded to put the measuring tape up against her own foot. She looked at the size of her foot and, I think, tried to reconcile that she was as tall as three of her own feet.
I lost at Candyland again. I am growing suspicious that Claire has not fully read the rules.
5 years 12 weeks ago