Slap Happy

A reenactment

“Did she show you her hands?” Tracey asked me as she wandered into the kitchen a minute or so behind Miss15.

“Oh,” I said, as in uh-oh.

Replaying the odd encounter through my mind which I’d just had with Miss15 it slowly dawned on me I may have misread something fairly important in that little encounter.

A couple of hours ago I’d dropped her at gymnastics.

“Today’s the day,” she told me. “Today I’m going all the way to the top of the rope climb.”

She’d managed to get within a foot of the ceiling the last couple of weeks.

We have three girls doing gymnastics at the moment and they’ve all made huge improvements since they started. For Miss15 it’s been mental and physical. Initially she wouldn’t even wear gym clothes but now she rocks them.

But the rope climb is the big thing she’s been focused on conquering.

And this was her week.

“DAD!” she exclaimed, running into the house. ” I did it! I got all the way to the top!”

I was genuinely thrilled for her. I was shite at gymnastics. Like I did a somersault once in high school gym class but it involved tripping on a mat as I walked up to my nemeses, the uneven bars. Still, my PE teacher was impressed and it earned me a C on my report card.

At this point in our interaction Miss15 threw both her hands towards me and I high-fived the hell out of them with all the gusto I could muster.

“That’s so awesome!” I enthused.

At which point Miss15 cried out, running off to her bedroom with her hands tucked under her arms.

“She got to the top of the rope climb,” Tracey continued as I began to look for an escape route out of the house, “but she slipped coming down and has a bad case of rope burn on her fingers. I’m surprised she didn’t show you.”

But moments later her surprise at that was eclipsed by her surprise at my stupidity.

With 19 years of married life under our belts I really do think Tracey should be more used to it by now.

Raising a family on little more than laughs

This post is not sponsored

2 Comments

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.