I should have thought to take and post pictures, but maybe we'll take them tomorrow. In the meantime, I need to note that yesterday, Vivian measured herself back-to-back against Erin and called upon me to compare their heights. She thought that she might end up being taller than her mother.
Erin has (semi-seriously) been dreading this moment. She knows she doesn't have the tall genes, but her kids do, something she blames me for. And the kids, realizing that they have something to hold over their mother, are hyping this up, Vivian especially, because she knows the time was coming soon when she was officially Taller than her Mother.
Well, the stood back to back, and Vivian looked like she had a good half inch on Erin, and I looked down at their feet and saw... Vivian's heels were on the floor.
She was actually and officially taller than her mother.
I was surprised at how much of a moment it was for me. I actually went, "Oh, my God" and put my hand to my mouth, which of course was cue for Erin to freak out, because she knew what this meant. The moment had come.
It's a milestone becoming taller than your parents. I vaguely recall how happy I was to be taller than my mother. I'm still somewhat ruefully disappointed that I didn't pass my father's height of five feet, eleven and three-quarters inches (I'm five feet, eleven and one-quarter. We're both disappointed that we didn't make six feet). It's a rather tangible milestone on the road to adulthood -- all the more surprising given that not every kid gets to be taller than their parents, or else basketball would become a comically easy game within the first two generations...
But, for Vivian, that milestone has been reached, just a month and a half after her twelfth birthday.
And so begins her job of getting things off the top shelf for her mother. That could be Erin's way of getting her own back.