Having learned the hard way with quite a few lesser versions myself, I warned Maddy, who had just turned four, that if you pull the tape out all the way it will break and it won’t go back in anymore.

She doesn’t know how far all the way would be so she was being pretty cautious (so far so good). But watching that thing ziiiiiiiiipping back into itself–she did a little leap and a laugh each time.

I’d actually given it to her mom but it quickly proved how useful a distraction it could be to a kid needing attention or distraction: we could measure things together.

And so we did. Going around her instep matched the width of her wrist. Who knew? Around just her heel: same number. Height, head, hand… She’d owned the number four for less than a week but now she had all these other numbers that were just hers, too!

If only I’d known when my own kids were little how small and yet how engrossing a game I could have had in my purse all that time.

(Lantern Moon crocheted beaded tape measure from Vietnam, bought at Uncommon Threads in Los Altos, CA.)