Tag: tall

Charlie’s Room: Short and Tall

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Charlie looked up from his spaghetti and asked, “How tall will I be when I grow up?”

Marianne and Isaac looked at each other. Isaac lost the staring contest. He smiled at Charlie. “It’s hard to say. You’ll probably be somewhere around the height of your mom and I. Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering if I got too tall for this house, if I could go and live at that store with the really tall doors. I think I’d like that. How do I get to be tall?”

Marianne shrugged. “I don’t think you get to pick how tall you are. Just eat healthy, and get plenty of sleep. That’s pretty much all you can do.”

“Unless you end up in some sort of magical dimension and eat the wrong sort of thing,” Isaac added.

“Like Alice in Wonderland?” Charlie grinned. “I like that. It would be nice to be able to be short and tall whenever you want. And her clothes grew with her! That would be good. I’m not sure if there are clothes for really, really tall people in the stores. If I was really small, we could buy a doll house for me to live in.”

“Well, there aren’t any magical dimensions, so you need to eat your vegetables and go to bed on time.” Marianne pointed to his plate and Charlie started eating his peas.

“And the dollhouse?” Charlie asked, his mouth half full of chewed peas.

“Wait to finish eating what’s in your mouth before you talk.”

Charlie closed his mouth, and Isaac nodded approvingly. “If you were small enough to live in a dollhouse, we’d get you one.”

Charlie finished chewing. “I think I need a little brother or sister.”

“Why?” Marianne frowned.

“Then I wouldn’t be the littlest one in the house. I’d be really big, but I wouldn’t be the biggest one, either. I’d be big and small at the same time. So?”

“So, what?” Isaac asked.

“When can I have a little brother or sister?”

Marianne and Isaac looked at each other. Isaac lost the staring contest again. He really needed to practice, or he was going to be stuck answering all the difficult questions. He didn’t mind really, except that Marianne usually gave better answers.

“That probably won’t happen,” Isaac said. “But we’ll let you know if that changes. I think you’re overlooking one obvious solution to your problem.”

Charlie frowned at first, but his frown fell as he began to think. “What solution? Can we get a dog?”

“I’m still allergic to dogs, sadly,” Isaac said.

Charlie thought a little longer. “I still don’t know.”

“If what you really want is to be short and tall, the solution isn’t to find some one younger than you. If you had a little brother or sister, they would grow too. They might even end up taller than you. Also, you are already shorter than us, but as you get older, that will change. We won’t be a lot taller than you any more. However, there are things that you are always going to be taller than or shorter than.”

“Like what?”

“Think of the plants and animals that are taller and shorter than you.”

“Like dinosaurs?”

Isaac nodded. “Yup. Always taller.”

“But who is always shorter?”

“Goldfish, petunias, flower fairies, leprechauns, ants…” Isaac started counting things off on his fingers.

“I still kind of want a little brother or sister. And a big brother or sister. And a dog.” Charlie pushed the peas around on his plate.

Marianne and Isaac looked at each other. Marianne smiled and let Isaac win the staring contest. She put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Do you remember the story of the three bears? Each of the bears had something different, but it was just right for them. Do you think Mama bear who liked soft chairs would have been comfortable in Papa bear’s chair?”

“No.”

“Do you think that Papa Bear liked his porridge the same way as Mama bear?”

“I guess not. I don’t know.”

Marianne patted Charlie’s shoulder and let go. “Just right is different for different people and different families. I think our family is just right for us. I’m glad we have each other.”

Charlie nodded slowly. “Okay. But can we get a bird? Or a goldfish? Dad isn’t allergic to those.”

Marianne looked at Isaac and he shrugged. “We’ll see,” she said.

The next week, they bought a goldfish. It was much shorter than Charlie. “Now I just need to find a dinosaur,” he said.

Charlie’s Room: Tall Tales

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“Dad, were you always tall?” Charlie asked one day.

Isaac fit a piece of sky into the puzzle with a smile. “What do you mean?”

Marianne reached across the table for a mostly yellow piece. “I’ve never seen a baby as tall as him, so I doubt it.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Charlie sighed and turned the piece he was holding sideways and tried to fit it into the roof of the birdhouse. It didn’t fit.

“I think that’s part of one of the branches. The brown is more gray and less green,” Marianne said.

Holding the piece up, Charlie squinted. “I think you’re right.” He scooted around the end of the table and started trying to fit the piece in a different spot. “I was meaning that everyone says I’m short, and I was wondering if Dad was short too when he was my age.”

“He’s not short now,” Marianne said. She gave up on the yellow piece and picked up a piece with a stripe of brown down one side. “I was always short when I was younger. Then I was normal. Maybe you get the shortness from me.”

“I worried about being short once. I worried about it for about a month. Luckily, my school had a leprechaun as an exchange student. After standing behind him in the lunch line, I realized I wasn’t really short after all, and I haven’t worried about it ever since.”

“A leprechaun?” Charlie asked, putting down his puzzle piece.

“Mmm-hmmmm.” Isaac placed a piece of sky that had the edge of a bird’s wing. “He wore a little green suit and had a big bushy beard and was as tall as the top of my knee without his top hat.”

“He had a beard? In elementary school?” Marianne raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical.

“Yes, but I think he was rather young in leprechaun years. I’m not really sure how that works.” Isaac found another piece of sky and bird.

“Could he do magic? Did he have a pot of gold?” Charlie asked, paying no attention to the puzzle.

Isaac looked over at him and smiled. “Of course. I told you he was a leprechaun, didn’t I? He could pop around to wherever he wanted to go, so he was always first in line. He kept his gold at the end of the rainbow where it’s safest.”

“If it was just sitting there, what kept people from taking it away?” Marianne found the last piece of the birdhouse roof and put it in place.

“Rainbows always seem just as far away no matter how quickly you walk or drive, right?” Isaac began.

“But he could pop over to it, so he’s the only one who could get there,” Charlie said loudly while grinning. “It makes sense.”

“Aha!” Marianne said. Isaac and Charlie turned to watch as she fit a branch she’d been working on separately into place in the puzzle. She nodded. “I knew I could attach it eventually.”

Charlie looked back down at the pieces and found a piece with a line through it. He handed it to his mom. “Is this the end of a branch?”

“Yes, and I know where it goes,” she said. “It’s nearly the end when the pieces start going in fast.”

“Because there aren’t as many places they can go,” Charlie said, handing her another piece. “How long did the leprechaun stay at your school, Dad?”

“Just for the rainy season. I think he had to stay close to rainbows.” Isaac put the last plain blue piece into the sky.

“Why don’t we get exchange students?”

“I don’t know. Budget cuts?” Isaac handed a piece of branch to Marianne.

“We never had exchange students at my school, either,” Marianne said as she fit the piece in place. “Maybe it was just a special program at your dad’s school. Or maybe your dad is just telling tall tales.”

“Tall tales?”

Marianne tried a piece, turned it, and placed it somewhere else. “A story that’s exaggerated. There was probably someone shorter than him in school, but the kid wasn’t knee-high with a beard. Leprechauns aren’t real, of course.”

“Oh.” Charlie handed her the last piece.

Marianne handed it back. “Why don’t you do the honors?”

Charlie put the piece in place. The puzzle was done. “Puzzles always go faster when Mom helps.”

“We all have our talents.” Marianne smiled. “I can’t run as fast as your dad does.”

“Well, I thought I could run fast until that first gym class with the unicorn exchange student. He ran so fast that he made us all feel like we were standing in place.”

Charlie laughed. “I get it. That one’s a fast tale, right?”