Most posters here know my 13 year old daughter Katie. She's a beauty, tall as her mother now, seemingly all legs. She's a great hiker, climbs with me now and then, and she always seems to have a great outlook on life (except when the subject at hand is how cool her dad is - she seems to choke up a bit on that subject).
So, Katie joined the kids climbing team at the local gym this season. Cool; she seems to enjoy climbing more with other people, so I think she'll enjoy the team. But, when I picked her up after practice recently, she wasn't wearing her "normal" climbing shoes. (Normally she wears her mother's shoes - in fact she borrows a lot of Vic's clothes too). Apparently her mom's shoes are so tight they really hurt. So, we bought her a larger pair of shoes, a pair the coach had on hand. According to Katie, they fit, so I didn't pay much attention.
In the way of most teenagers, Katie misplaced one of her new shoes between her last practice and tonight's practice. She knew I'd be angry, so she spent an hour this afternoon looking. But, no luck, she had one shoe. So, she came up with a solution. She went to the garage and grabbed a pair of my climbing shoes. This gave her a ready solution to propose when the time came to tell me about the lost shoe. Upon hearing her tale, and her supposed solution, I got angry, but not too. How can you get really angry when the "solution" is so patently ludicrous? The thought that my climbing shoes would fit her. Most amusing.
One problem though. My shoes fit her. Perfectly. Holy crap, she's 13 years old, how can she wear men's size 10? She's passed up lot's of my climbing partners in height already. Laura, who's known her since birth. Jennifer, Hope, and others (and she's creeping up on many of my male climbing partners too). I think I just realized something- if she ever grows into those feet (and she's still got lots of time) she's going to be taller than I am.
Oh, and she found the shoe. The coach had it, she'd left it behind at the last practice.
