One inch

We've been discussing what we want to read and learn about this coming school year. The kids want to do some mythology stuff and Shakespeare was thrown out as well, so I thought a good place to start might be with The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. That would get us into both Shakespeare and would lend itself to studying the history and mythology of the Roman Empire. 

So I ordered some books for us to have on hand and a few of them came in today. Andrew opened the packages and brought them to me. One of the books surprised me. 

"Huh. This is shorter than I thought," I remarked. 

"So is Dad!" Rachel quipped. "He's only 5'11"!"

Andrew's jaw dropped—that girl's comedic timing is impeccable!—and he doubled over with laughter.

You see, he has always claimed to be 6 feet tall...but he's not! 

We were doing a family activity on human body ratios a while ago and we learned that typically your arm span is equal to your height from head to toe, so we measured everyone's arm span and Andrew's came up an inch short.

He was certain this would prove that his arms were, perhaps, a little on the short side, but when we measured everyone's height against the wall...he still came up as 5'11". 

He had us measure several times, but no matter which measuring tape we used, or who did the measuring, or how we measured...he was always 5 feet 11 inches. 

So we've been teasing him about this for several months now...and I'm not sure when we'll stop.