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.