When Little Girls Grow Up

When Little Girls Grow Up

My husband has a difficult time, more difficult that most (think: insane neurotic opinions) when it comes to the concept of his little girl becoming something other than a little girl. He insists that she’ll be allowed to date when she’s 36. He’s praying that the locating chip that is being developed for human use is perfected and on the market before she’s 18. When she talks about boys in a manner other than to describe what idiots they are, he gets white in the face and insists that that kind of talk just needs to end right now.

Imagine his shock and horror last night. Our back-yard neighbors who live on the other side of the hedge are some of our closest friends and one of their daughters is Ringlet’s close friend and almost her exact age. I’ve been talking with P (my neighbor) about the things we’ve noticed start to change in our daughters, physical changes, impending puberty, and other kinds of things and naturally, if one of us speaks to one our kids about it, the other one better do it too before the discussion begins between the kids without the benefit of our input. So I sat down the Ringlet a day or two ago and explained what those belly cramps she’s been getting every couple of weeks that never lead to a big ol’ pooo might be signaling and even though she knows what a “period” is, I wanted her to be aware that she’s rapidly approaching the age where it could become a reality for her. Her response was nothing I didn’t expect. “Really? EWWW. OK. I can handle that, but I am NOT wearing a bra.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that with her genetics, that might not be something she should be too terribly concerned about.

The neighbors and their kids were over for dinner last night and while the adults were out back enjoying a warm evening around the patio table, the girls were downstairs watching a movie. Mr. Ringie headed down to the basement for a bottle of water and when he came back upstairs, I heard his voice ringing through the back window at us, ordering us to go DOWN those stairs and tell those GIRLS that they didn’t have ANY business discussing the thing about which they were speaking. We said “You do it”. He said “NO!” We said “Well, at least tell us what they’re talking about.” and he said “They are TALKING about getting their PERIODS.”

It was all we could do to get our fists into our mouths in time to keep from braying right in his poor face.

“But honey, why can’t they talk about that?”

“They’re not OLD enough to talk about that.”

“OK, how old is old enough? I mean, saying it’s not going to happen isn’t going to stop it from happening and we think it’s GOOD they can talk to each other about it. When do you think they’ll be old enough to discuss it?”

“When they’re older.”

“How old?”

“I dunno. FORTY would be good.”

“Great. We can talk about periods AND menopause and kill two birds with one stone.”

That poor guy.

But I will say that there IS something terribly cute and simultaneously weird about your child talking about her period and losing a baby tooth all in one evening.

Crying my Way Through Terabithia

First of all, if you have yet to see this movie and intend to, especially if you're not familiar with the ending of this story, and if you hate a spoiler, stop right friggin now cause I'm gonna give away the ending. Don't say you weren't warned.

We took my 9 year old daughter to see The Bridge to Terabithia tonight. I wasn't particularly looking forward to it because there comes a time when you'd really like to get out of the house, buy some greasy popcorn and see a movie with something higher than a PG-13 rating, a few F-bombs and possibly a little skin. I'd seen the previews and figured I was headed into another cute little fantasy movie. I was wrong.

As the movie went on, I leaned to my daughter and said "OK. I'm confused." I figured it was my turn and just as I would have done to her had our roles been reversed into the usual place, she whispered back "Just watch the movie." Where were the mythical creatures? Where were the dragons and fairies? How effing long IS this movie? But as it went on, I found myself becoming more and more immersed in the lives and struggles of these children and came to realize that Terabithia was truly their place, the place that came to life because of the fertility of their imaginations and understood the strength that their friendship and the world they created together changed their lives.

Then came the dreaded ending and we found that Leslie had died and my little one fell apart, I fell apart, and in a theatre that was unusually full of teenage girls and young adults for a movie that had been showing for a while, the resounding snorting of snotty noses and rustling napkins doing double duty as Kleenex filled the space. Everybody was losing it, openly crying. Then we'd laugh and cry at the same time. Then we'd just flat out cry some more.

The whole movie was just wonderful, even if it did completely fuck up my makeup.

On the way out, under the harsh glare of the lights, we ran into people we knew who looked at us, smiled and said "You guys look like hell." And we did.

What I wasn't expecting was my daughter's eventual reaction to the bright idea of killing off Leslie. We got home and while I was upstairs getting into my jammies, my husband came into the bedroom and said "do you have any idea what your daughter is doing?" (He said "my" daughter, meaning not HIS daughter, so I knew it had to be good.) I said "Uh oh." He said "Go see for yourself."

I trotted down the stairs and found her in the big chair, with both the Terabithia book AND the phone book on her lap, cordless phone in hand. She looked up and said "I'm gonna call the people who made this movie and open up a can of whoop-butt about killing Leslie." I said "Hon, those people don't live around here and they're not in that phone book." She replied with "Fine. Give me a BIG phone book and I'll find them that way." Thank God she doesn't yet quite know how to use Google or there would be about 50 people with the last name of Patterson seriously pissed off by now.

The Bridge to Terabithia might be Disney and it might be marketed for kids, but it's a movie for all ages to enjoy and one guaranteed to test your inner strength and your waterproof mascara.

Go.