Saturday was the state Special Olympics cheerleading competition. Sophie’s team bombed. They finished third out of three, winning bronze medals. I found Sophie’s crumbled on the not very clean porch windowsill the next day. No one had even bothered to bring it into the house.

A rather sad end to the season, in contrast with last year, when Team Tempe came from behind to tie for the gold.

Here’s the thing, though. Sophie’s team bombed — but they also completely and totally kicked ass. They had great music, great choreography, they knew their moves. The crowd loved them. Sophie had a blast onstage, smiling, shaking her pom poms and her hips, staying on the beat and, of course, doing the splits (three times!) at the end of the routine. (When Ray gets a video made, I’ll post it.)

The competition was tough. In order to dance and cheer (as opposed to just cheer), a team has to enter the “advanced” category. And Tempe was pitted this year against two very good teams. So yes, technically they bombed and kicked butt at the same time. And honestly, I don’t think the team would have performed as well if they hadn’t been pushed so hard to compete. I love Sophie’s coach for making the decision to enter them in the harder spot.

It was one of those rare and beautiful moments when your kid is pushed to her limits under all the right circumstances, in a place where it’s safe to fail. In a place where it’s understood that even though every participant has “special needs,” someone will fail. A soft landing, a medal, but still, last place.

I sat in the audience as the bronze medal was announced, and thought about science.

Last week I learned something I am kicking myself over for not figuring out way sooner. What I’ve been able to piece together so far is that Sophie’s gotten little to no science and social studies instruction all year — and what she has received has not been modified, meaning it’s way too hard for her. Because of a scheduling snafu, instead of being pulled out of regular math and language arts for “resource” help, that’s been happening during science and social studies, the rare times Sophie is supposed to be learning alongside her typical peers.

Long story short: the work in science and social studies is too hard, and Sophie’s not in class (much if at all) to learn it.

I’m sure I’ll write more about this as I learn more (I have meetings pending with the special education teacher and principal) but one thing I’ve learned disturbs me most of all. Sophie was given a C in social studies and one in science, and word on the street is that this is because someone at the school has been trained to “never give a special needs student a failing grade.”

That could be because it’s expensive and inconvenient to educate a special needs kid. The idea generally is to resist holding such kids back a grade — just move them along, let them socialize with their peers. It could also be because it’s easier to give a special needs kid a C than disappoint either her or her parents. Ds and Fs raise more questions than Cs.

I am not a fan of either reason. I sat and stewed during the rest of that medal ceremony and it wasn’t because Team Tempe lost. It was because when you throw that up against what has obviously happened at school — and a school where everyone loves Sophie; where a lawyer fine-tooth-combs her IEP and attends all the meetings; where I like to think I’m on top of every little thing — almost an entire year can go by where no one’s offering your kid (and others, this seems to apply to at least two if not a whole gaggle of fifth graders and perhaps beyond) two of the main subjects taught at the school.

I blame myself. I should have figured it out. But I didn’t. No one did, until last week. Now there will be lots of meetings, carefully worded apologies (since all of this may or may not be illegal). They’ve already sent home science and social studies vocabulary words for Sophie to study for an upcoming test. For the most part, I’ve learned that people aren’t cruel; they are just not well trained for their jobs, and when Sophie’s part of the job, there’s a greater chance of mishap since it’s so relatively rare for a kid with Down syndrome to come along and require so many adjustments. And Sophie does require a lot. I get that. I feel guilty about it. But Sophie deserves an equal education.

And if the classwork is modified and taught to Sophie and she studies and takes a test and fails — she deserves an F.

They’ve cheered at basketball games, competed in the regional competition and practiced just about every Saturday since December.

A funny thing occurred to me at practice this morning: I’m going to miss cheer. Me, the one who was so horrified at the mere suggestion.

Sophie and I both started out pretty lukewarm.

I spent the first several practices with my teeth gritted, wondering what my kid was really getting out of it — certainly not much exercise, since these cheers are mostly a lot of arm waving. She memorizes much more complicated routines in the ballet classes she takes with typical kids.

I couldn’t see how she’d make friends out of the deal, either. With the exception of one girl her age she’s already friendly with, the team is pretty much all adults. Which would be fine (Sophie loves adults!) except it’s a fairly quiet, withdrawn bunch. Several weeks in, Sophie still hadn’t really cracked the nut with any of them.

But we’d made a commitment and Sophie liked the uniform and the pom poms, so we kept going. And in the end, we both got into it.

Really into it, I’m embarrassed to admit. Two weeks ago at the regional competition, I — well, the best way to describe it is that I kind of lost my mind. There was a big auditorium with a judges’ table and a whole bunch of teams lined up on the sidelines. When Team Tempe took the stage, I found myself moving forward and practically taking the stage myself — standing behind the coach, smiling and mouthing the cheers, pantomiming the moves, almost panting with excitement and nerves.

Afterward, I had to shake myself like a dog and wonder, “Why did that seem so familiar?” Then I realized, in horror, that I am no better than reality TV’s Dance Moms; on par with Toddlers and Tiaras.

I had to put on a big smile when Tempe took second place to Mesa — out of two teams in their heat. It didn’t matter to Sophie, she was thrilled with her silver medal and the joy of competing, not to mention the cupcakes handed out afterward.

I was careful to keep frosting off her uniform, but her mouth was covered and I panicked for a moment, looking around for a bathroom or a drinking fountain. Then I saw Robert. He’s the only male on the team, a quiet older guy with a sweet smile. I’d never seen him and Sophie interact, but here he was — and he was holding out a wet paper towel.

That’s when I realized what this whole cheer thing is about: teamwork. True, the routines aren’t anything super fancy, but they require concentration and symmetry. They require the group to work as a team. (And it doesn’t hurt that their coach is terrific — kind and understanding but also down to earth and funny.)

I watched this morning with new eyes, and saw Ursula, the grande dame of the team who came to the competition decked out in sparkly eyeshadow and brand-new white Keds, greet Sophie with excitement. At the end, when I said to Sophie, “Hey, Babycakes, let’s go,” another team member, Colleen, giggled and said something I didn’t quite catch.

“You’d call her Small Fly?” I asked, confused.

“No,” Colleen said, rolling her eyes. “Small Fry.”

We both laughed.

Even though cheer’s not even over yet this year, on the way home Sophie and I discussed it and decided she’ll definitely sign up again next year.

It had been a whole week, but I knew exactly who she meant. I’d been thinking about that woman, too.

She is middle-aged, hard to say more than that. Looks a bit like a school principal — tall, slender, in a pant suit (a little dressy for a Saturday morning), her straight brown hair cut to her chin. I figured she was the parent of one of the cheerleaders, but I didn’t know which one. Sophie’s one of the only little kids participating in cheer — the rest are adults. And the parents of the adult cheerleaders don’t usually hover in the back of the practice room like I do. Mostly they sit in a separate room and chat.

So although we were several sessions in, I hadn’t noticed this woman til the end of practice last week, when Sophie suggested that all the parents come in and watch a few cheers. The very sweet (and very good) coach agreed.

Afterward, the woman walked over to the gaggle of cheerleaders, pointed a long finger down at Sophie, nodded at me and asked dramatically, “Is she yours?”

I nodded.

“I want her!” the woman said loudly. “I’m taking her home with me!”

Sophie looked up, startled, then backed away.

“Say hello, Sophie!” I said, embarrassed. My typically friendly child shook her head hard, burying her head in my hip as I murmured, “It’s okay, she just thinks you’re cute, she isn’t really going to take you.”

The woman didn’t seem to notice. “She’s adorable!” she said. “And she’s going to stay that way!”

Then she turned on her heel and left. It was a brief encounter, but I thought about the woman all week. I wondered about her and her kid, wondered what diagnosis her kid has. Mostly, though, I wondered what she meant when she said, “And she’s going to stay that way!”

Did she mean that, like her kid, Sophie would be an adorable adult? Or the opposite? I’ll be honest — it sounded like the latter.

Another week’s come and gone, and I’m still not sure. I got Sophie in the door this past Saturday morning by promising she wouldn’t have to go near the woman, and when we got inside, I watched her carefully, trying to match her with a cheerleader.

Annabelle figured it out: The older woman’s daughter is a young, plump woman with Down syndrome — probably in her 20s, maybe 30s — with a blonde bob and glasses. In several weeks, I haven’t heard the young woman say a word. She stands quietly, pays attention, does what’s asked of her. She looks a little defeated. I’m not sure I’ve seen her crack a smile.

Despite the similar hair, glasses and features, the young woman’s not much like Sophie — who talks so much I wonder if the coaches lament recent innovations in speech therapy. Sophie’s a tiny, whirling dervish of questions, demands, jacket on and off, shoes chucked in a corner, always angling to stand next to the coach to cheer like she’s a coach herself, vying to be the one to yell, “Ready, ok!” And, yeah, adorable. I agree that Sophie is adorable.

So what did that woman mean? I don’t know; all I know is that she sort of scared the shit out of my kid.

Maybe we’ll find out next week.

I did it. I’ve been talking it about (a lot — apologies to those who have listened to me go on) and today I finally did it. I sent in Sophie’s Special Olympics registration. For cheerleading. What follows is a piece I read last month at an event sponsored by a group called the Lit Mamas. The lights were so bright I couldn’t tell if the audience was cheering — or cringing. In any case, next month Sophie starts cheerleading practice. I’m quite certain this won’t be my last post on the topic.

It was the perfect moment.

The sun was shining, a breeze was blowing, the waves were crashing just loudly enough to drown out the noise of the other families on the beach. And for the first time all week, most of my own family was nowhere to be seen.

We’ve been coming to this stretch of La Jolla – my parents, my younger sister and me – for a week every summer for nearly 30 years, and over time, our ranks have increased – with boyfriends, then husbands, and now kids. Back in the day, I’d spend hours on this beach, frying under Bain de Soleil (for the St. Tropez tan) SPF #4 and reading book after book, or sleeping, moving only when I really had to pee.

Now I’m lucky if I can pick up a magazine – let alone turn a page – before someone cries, or escapes running down the beach, or vomits sea water in my lap. These days I wear cover-ups and hats, slathering my exposed spots with Neutrogena SPF 70 that includes something called Helioplex that leaves a really attractive white film all over me – and my children, when I can catch them long enough to pour gobs of it on them.

But this day, this moment, something odd happened. I looked around, and it was just my mom and me, wrapped in beach towels on our lounge chairs, all alone on the beach. Jackpot.

I was just starting to doze off when my mother spoke.

“Ames, there’s something I have to say.”

My eyes flew open. OH FUCK, I thought. It’s cancer. When your 70-year-old mother uses that tone of voice, how can it be anything else? FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. FUCK.

I threw off the towel, sat up and turned to face her.

“Um, what?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, my heart racing.

“I really think you should consider letting Sophie do cheerleading in the Special Olympics,” she said.

“Jesus Christ, are you fucking kidding me?” I shrieked. “I thought you had – um, well, I thought. Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. Don’t scare me like that!”

She continued on, as though she hadn’t heard me.

“I know how you feel about cheerleading, the whole feminist argument and all, but just think about how much fun Sophie would have! She loves to dance, and she loves people. She’d have such a great time.”

Before I could say more than “I’ll take it under advisement,” a throng of children and husbands descended and the moment was gone.

But I did think about it. A lot. In fact, I can’t stop thinking about it, and that’s got me really annoyed, because, frankly, I’ve got other things on my mind.

Sophie has Down syndrome. She will be 10 next May. All children come with their own special challenges, but Sophie’s really loaded for bear: She had open heart surgery before she was 1 and more open heart surgery at 4. She’s had three operations for clogged tear ducts (none of them worked, by the way), half a dozen pairs of orthotics for her feet and several pairs of glasses for eyes that don’t work right. She has her own lawyer, who bullied the neighborhood school into keeping her there, and every day I drop her off I wonder how much time we have left at that place before they tell us it’s just too much work to keep her there.

I can tell what you’re thinking. But please, don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t. And if Sophie was here tonight, you’d know why. The kid kicks some serious ass. She’s smart, funny, and I know it’s a stereotype but she’s the nicest person I’ve ever met. She can also be a total jerk. I love her like crazy.

So that’s why I take any decisions made on her behalf very, very seriously. And I’m not talking about the decision to crack open her chest and fix the hole in her heart. We had no choice there. I’m talking about the day to day aesthetic choices, the stuff that matters a lot more to all of us than we’re willing to admit.

When Sophie was just a few days old, I made a decision. If she was doomed to a life of bagging groceries, so be it. But she would never wear a bow tie when doing so, like the clerks at the high end market in town, A.J.’s. No way.

Not a good look for people with Down syndrome.

Over the years, the list has grown: No overalls, no top hats, no sailor suits. There is no rhyme or reason to my fashion pronoucements (although the overalls thing might have something to do with Of Mice and Men) – they simply come to me. And it’s not like I’m so High Fashion myself. I’m not; nor does it bother me that my husband shows up at the office every day a wrinkled mess.

But for Sophie, it’s different. She’s got to look her best.

Again, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, who cares – your kid is mentally retarded. She’ll be LUCKY to get a chance to bag groceries. Who cares what she wears while she does it?

I care.

Always have. I made sure Sophie had hot pink Converse to wear over her ugly foot braces when she was learning to walk, and scoured the thrift stores for Oilily and Baby Lulu outfits when she entered pre-school. She always has the cutest backpack in her class.

At the same time, I try not to stifle her creativity, which is why some days, she hits the playground in her fanciest party dress and tennis shoes. The other day she insisted on gigantic pink-lensed sunglasses. Sort of Diana Vreeland with a twist, I decided, and let it go.

But I have my limits. Sophie’s the tiniest kid anyone knows, so she gets all the hand me downs, and I hide the bags our friends give us til I can search them by myself late at night, getting rid of the overalls and the Elmo tee shirts she loves but is way too old for. And nothing too hoochy mama.

When Sophie turned 8, I signed up for the city of Tempe’s Special Olympics newsletter. That first season, the choices were as follows: bowling, speed skating and cheerleading.

OK, no bowling. Not as a team sport, anyway. No way. First, it’s not real exercise. And second – well, do I really have to explain myself? It’s just not a dignified sport. And speed skating? Yeah, right. So that left cheerleading.

And thus, my existential crisis.

Look, here’s the thing: Sophie is going to spend most of her life on the sidelines, no matter how hard I try to make it otherwise. She won’t likely drive a car or go to college or live on her own – if she does any of those things, it will be a truncated version. Special Olympics is one chance she gets to step on a level playing field. Why should she be off to the side, jumping around?

“But she’ll look so cute in the uniform!” a friend said.

“Oh, don’t be such a spoil sport,” another friend said. “Anyhow, cheerleading isn’t what it used to be. It’s very athletic!”

Not for Sophie, who can’t turn a cartwheel – let alone do a backflip off the top of a human pyramid. No. Cheerleading for Sophie will only ever be a photo op.

“Oh come on,” my mom’s voice echoes in my head. “She’ll have fun!”

Ballet class is fun. Swimming lessons are fun. Running track in Special Olympics – that was a blast. Sophie loved it, ran her heart out, cherishes her fourth place ribbon. That was a lot of goddamn fun!

Cheerleading??? Do we really have to go there?

Right now you’re thinking: Wow. That woman really overthinks everything. You are right. I do. It’s exhausting. And wait – I’m not done.

I haven’t admitted this to my mother, but the truth is that I’ve been thinking about cheerleading since before I was Sophie’s age, and it’s not because I’m some crazed feminist. It’s because I always wanted to be a cheerleader.

I mean, really, how many kids choose to be on the speech and debate team? That was just a way to keep busy during the dances and other typical events I wasn’t included in when I was in high school. I watched the other kids like an anthropologist, and realized at an early age that the one sure-fire path to popularity – at my school, anyway – was cheerleading.

It wasn’t going to happen. I turned my last somersault when I was four. Like Albert Brooks’ annoying, nerdy-smart character in Broadcast News, as a kid I consoled myself with the thought that someday, I’d be more successful than any of them. That didn’t happen (some of them are damn fine real estate agents!) but I have lived happily ever after – and happier than a lot of them, if what I see on Facebook is any indication.

And now I’m charged with the happiness of two young girls. The truth is that I just don’t see any upside to Sophie being a cheerleader. It won’t bring her great popularity – and here I’m not talking about how, often, kids with Down syndrome become the mascots of their high school – elected Prom Queen, named “team manager” – and it won’t result in great athletic prowess.

It’ll just be – well, it’ll just be fun.

After months of thinking about it, I did the thing I should have done the first day it came up. I asked Sophie.

“Hey, Sophes,” I said one night before bed. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Yes, Mommy?”

“Do you want to do Special Olympics cheerleading?”

“YES!”

So Sophie will be a cheerleader — for one season, at least.

And I’ll be in the stands – cheering.

In some ways, it’s quite professional and rigid. Sophie’s first track & field meet is this Saturday, and two weeks ago we were warned not to miss practice; times would be taken and heats arranged. So we were there, and Sophie did her javelin and running events. Even set a personal record in javelin.

Then the roster came home this week, showing her registered for the softball throw, not javelin. She’s never done the softball throw; she’s practiced for months with her PE teacher at school on the javelin. I scanned the document, knowing what I’d see before I saw it.

Yep, they’d swapped Sophie’s name with another little girl’s. This little girl, who is also in third grade at Sophie’s school, is an awesome kid. She and Sophie are nothing alike — and yet, of course, to much of the world, they are. Two girls with glasses and straight brown-ish hair. And Down syndrome.

I fought hard not to think evil thoughts toward the sweet (but a little disorganized — maybe overwhelmed?) Special Olympics coaches. But I couldn’t help it. The other little girl had been practicing the softball throw with her dad at home. She hadn’t been measured at the javelin; so much, I thought for all that professionalism and the fancy track meet talk.

But mostly what bothered me was the feeling that Sophie and the little girl had been confused for one another. Again. It happens all the time at school — where you’d expect it.

You wouldn’t expect — at least, I wouldn’t have expected it — to happen at Special Olympics. Celebration of differences and all that. “Eunice Shriver would be horrified!” a friend (sort of) joked when I told him.

Sophie is two heads shorter than the other little girl. Sophie’s got bangs, the other girl does not. The other little girl is a pro on the monkey bars, which Sophie’s never touched. Sophie is into Olivia the Pig; as far as I know, the other girl could care less about pigs. Both girls do love Justin Bieber. That is true.

Of course, no one at Special Olympics knows all this. They’ve only seen Sophie and the other little girl at practices — by far the two smallest kids there — hanging out together. It makes sense.

I just don’t want it to.

I mentioned the swap as gently as I could in an email to the parks and rec guy and it was (kind of) resolved by day’s end. He was really nice and I managed to keep my inner Dance Mom at bay. I’ve grown up a little in Sophie’s 9 years, I guess. Or maybe I’m just tired.

Pretty much ever since Sophie was born, I’ve kept a running list in my head of clothing items people with Down syndrome should avoid at all costs. These include but are not limited to: top hats, bow ties and overalls. Look, I get that that’s not a particularly politically correct thing to say. But we live in a mean world, people. You’ve got to look your best.

Yesterday I added another item to the list: the track suit.

I don’t even know where Annabelle located a matching pair of pants and jacket in our house, let alone a matching track suit. Yesterday afternoon she and Sophie disappeared and emerged into the kitchen a while later, announcing that Sophie was ready for her very first Special Olympics practice in track and field. (I never did get her signed up for cheerleading; more on that in an upcoming post, I promise.)

I guess Annabelle heard “track and field” and immediately thought “track suit.” Makes sense. I didn’t know til Sophie burst through the door, super excited, that this is not a good look. This was exacerbated by the fact that she was wearing a shirt that said supercalifragilisticexpialidocious on it, along with a pair of purple/black patent leather sneakers. The worst part was her hair, which was (and this is entirely my fault) tangled and greasy and (this she and Annabelle did) stuck half up/half down with about a dozen bobby pins hanging all over her head. Top that off with the smudged Down syndrome-standard-issue glasses, and there you’ve got it. Not Sophie’s best fashion statement.

WHO CARES?! you are no doubt yelling at your computer screen, along with unmentionable labels for me. Before you get too mad, you need to know that I did let Sophie out the door that way. She and Annabelle were really pleased (later Annabelle assured me that she’d put Sophie in a sports bra, just in case) and really excited for Special Olympics.

I was excited, too. And freaked out. Totally freaked out. If you have a special needs kid you might relate to the fact that ever since Sophie was born, not only have I been avoiding fashion mistakes on her part (when let’s face it, I should probably have focused more on my own) I have been thinking about Special Olympics. There aren’t many 100 percent super terrific things about having a special needs kid, but this is definitely one of them. If only, I’ve thought many times, there had been a Special Olympics for me. Alas, being a neurotic sufferer of hay fever and a diet soda addict does not qualify.

But having Down syndrome does, so off we went to a high school track near our house to sign up.

“I just wish Sophie looked cuter,” I thought to myself as we pulled out of the driveway. “Or at least cleaner.”

Really, if there’s one place where it doesn’t matter if your special needs kid is spit-shined it’s Special Olympics, right? Oh but it’s so much more complicated than that, particularly for those of us who are not joiners — the ones who don’t go to the support groups, who mainstream perhaps a bit too much.

Sophie was registering for Special Olympics yesterday, but I was the one being admitted into the club.

The hardest part’s over. We’re in. Sophie had a ball, can’t wait to go back next week. And I’ll get used to what you see at a typical Special Olympics track and field practice, right?

In any case, I’ll get over myself. But I’m hiding that damn track suit, I can tell you that. I’ve pretty much traced all of my clothing-for-developmentally-disabled-people phobias to the movies — “Of Mice and Men,” for example, is the source of my problem with overalls. I’m not sure exactly where the track suit thing comes in. The only movie I can think of in which matched track suits appear is “The Royal Tennenbaums.”

Come to think of it, we could all do worse than to dress like someone in a Wes Anderson movie.

I am so selfish that I actually had the following thought on Tuesday morning:

How dare Eunice Shriver die on Sophie’s first day of school.

I know. I’m horrible. But really, for once, I’d love to have a day that  is just about Sophie.

Sophie. Not my future Special Olympian, my mentally retarded kid — or, as I learned later in the week, my “intellectually disabled” kid.

I don’t know why, probably because I’ve heard the term “mentally retarded” so many times I’m immune to the sting, but I find the phrase “intellectually disabled” far more offensive.

The day after Shriver’s death, Diane Rehm had a man with Down syndrome on her show, to talk about the amazing contributions Shriver and the Special Olympics — and the special olympians like this man! — have made.

Funny, I realized I’d never heard someone with Down syndrome talk on the radio. You almost couldn’t tell, this man’s speech was so clear, his diction so sharp, his vocabulary remarkable. I sat in my car in a shopping mall parking lot, oblivious to the clock. Then one of the other guests, or maybe Rehm herself, said something about being “intellectually disabled”.

I sucked wind. The man I’d been listening to on the radio was definitely the smartest person in the studio that day — he had to be, to overcome the physical and other challenges that stood in his way of having such a good discussion. How dare someone call him intellectually disabled?

It’s all semantics. I know that. The kind of ephemeral stuff people waste hours debating over keyboards and coffees and cocktails.

What matters is that the guy is smart (or whatever) enough to be a super spokesman, to challenge our notions of what someone with his label (whatever you want his label to be) is capable of. Sophie did herself proud, too, her first day of school — her first week, in fact, has gone well, by all accounts. (All accounts I’m hearing, anyway.)

I can put my kid in a pink tutu and polka-dotted shoes for the first day of school, but there’s no way to dress up the terminology. It shouldn’t be about labels, anyhow. It’s all about the individual people. Maybe that’s something we’ll eventually learn from Eunice Shriver and her Special Olympics.

If it were up to Ray, I’m quite certain there’d be an X Games version of the Special Olympics.

He’s my daredevil. The guy hikes Camelback Mountain in the dead of the Phoenix summer; tosses himself and his mountain bike down South Mountain; and last week, he insisted on soloing a climbing route that had recently made the news because the kids who tried it required a mountain rescue (complete with firefighters and a helicopter) to get down.

He’s nuts. And that’s part of what makes him such a good dad. My dad is great, but the hilly-est surface he’ll attempt is a golf course, and he didn’t even force us (much) onto one of those, growing up. Ray hasn’t taken our girls on much outdoors (yet) and I do worry about the day he starts, but for now we’re all content to hang out at the Phoenix Rock Gym.

I don’t normally go along for Ray’s rock gym excursions — partly because the place is swamp-cooled,  mostly because I prefer to hear about the girls’ adventures once everyone’s back on the ground. But yesterday we all ventured forth. Annabelle scurried to the top of a couple of routes — she’s amazing — and for the most part, my job was to keep Sophie out of the way of other climbers.

But Ray did put Sophie in a harness and climbing shoes, and coach her up the wall. She did really well, reaching for the holds like a pro and getting herself all the way off the ground several times. Best of all, she was delighted — cracking up and calling for me to watch, which I did.

Ray’s convinced she’ll be at the top of the wall by the time she’s 6. That, I’m not sure I can watch.