long legs and homework

The glimpse of slightly ratty hair, the merest fleck on the bottom lip of a slack jaw. Every detail anchors this photo in a time and a place: warm milk in front of the telly after swimming.

When I saw that the Paper Mama photo challenge this week was on the theme of The Little Details, this picture immediately came to mind.

Last week, in the playground, we overheard our girl compliment a neighbour's daughter on her long legs. The leggy older child replied (with a world-weary sigh) "just wait 'til you're nine, it's all long legs and homework". What a classic and stylish summary of how it felt to be nine on that particular evening! I doubt that I could sum up the yin and the yang of our lives as succinctly.

But for The Boss, at four and a half, it's all swimming, warm milk and CBeebies. Perfect.