It happened reasonably quickly, marked only by a couple of weeks of rapid consumption. Apples disappeared by the dozen, and then biscuits, muesli bars and peanut butter sandwiches.
There was not much else to give it away, although I should have realised it was coming when, earlier this year, I noticed her towering over the babysitter.
And six months ago jeans bought at Christmas crept up her ankles and we needed to adjust the seat on her bike. Then she started borrowing my shoes.
I’ve been in denial, of course, because it is an unthinkable, incongruous notion.
But this morning, as she stood beside me in front of the mirror, there was no mistaking it.
My 12-year-old is now taller than me.
For years people had been telling me I needed to put a brick on her head. Even the maternal and child health nurse told me it was likely to happen one day, given she was off the percentile chart when it came to length.
Here it is. That day has come. She is now officially at least an inch taller than me. Presumably, because she is not yet a teenager, there’s more growing to come and, by the time she’s in VCE, we will have to have the doorways lifted.
How could my baby, that sweet little munchkin who once hugged my knees, begged to be carried on my hip, now be taller, more agile than her mum, able to run 100-metre sprints and devour mountains of food on the hour? She is always hungry, always standing with her head in the fridge, always searching for a snack.
Clearly, superior vitamin, mineral and protein intake has meant I’ve produced a giant, but there are at least two girls in her class who are taller. So she is not alone, which is a relief, and part of a trend. Kids these days are tall; it’s a thing.
Is it not enough that she eclipses me in the technology stakes, that she is my go-to person when I need to rent a film on digital TV, or change my ringtone or talk to someone on Skype?
As I stare at this amazingly strong creature, it is painfully clear.
There are so many things our children will be able to do better than us; they will have jobs that aren’t yet invented, climb mountains that don’t exist yet, live the kind of lives we cannot even imagine. Hopefully better lives, too, fairer and less dangerous than what we have known.
But I am worried that, as my daughter gets taller and stronger by the day, I might be shrinking. The ageing cycle is cruel enough without the reminder, mirrored every day by your gorgeous, thriving offspring, of the agile, lithe things we once were.
I say this after having just helped my mum, who is not well, who may have cancer, for the third time, alight from my car. She crosses the road slowly and with caution, because things hurt and tire and tear, and I realise I may one day also be a tiny little bird-like thing, like she is, helped along by my giant daughter.
For now I’m just happy knowing she can retrieve items from the high cupboards and reach the cobwebs I’ve missed on the ceiling. The day will come when she will need to help me from a car, but I am pleased to wait for that.
