not so puerile anymore

I get asked fairly often "don't you have 3 girls?" I answer emphatically (and with a mental rolling of my eyes) "yes." The eye rolling is not due to the asking of the question, but merely to the fact that I have to be asked.... sometimes I find myself exasperated with my beautiful firstborn, because she is never present for picture taking! If I am lucky enough to hog tie her long enough to shoot some pictures, her pained expressions make me feel much too guilty to post them on here (not to mention the ropes that show in the background of how she is tied up).

I reduced myself to bribery. Unabashedly, I admit this to you all. I buttered her up with promises of the use of my fedora and a personal one-on-one photo shoot. Of course the weather was boiling and her typical look of torture surfaced quickly (there was apparently a very important Wii game she needed to go play), but I did manage to snag this picture.



More recently and to the point of this post, Avery (that's my oldest daughter for those of you who are still lost) mentioned the other day something about the "P" word. Yes, she was talking about something and I was buried deep in my Harry Potter book, when like screeching tires on a semi wet road my ears were assaulted with "oh you mean like puberty?"

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!...went through my mind. She's ten, I'm not ready for this, not ready for her to be so grown and to know all this stuff. I'm still waiting for my own breasts to develop, I don't think I can manage telling her about hers.

Once they picked me up off the floor, (no that's a joke, if I fell it would be super bad right now as I am still healing from back surgery) I regained my composure and asked her if she knew what that...that...P word meant. She said "no, not really, just heard it on tv."

*sigh*

Thank you God! I was still going to have time to tell her myself.

So, as you all might have guessed by now, we are having "the talk" almost daily. We are embracing ideas about better hygiene, body image, healthy living, and reading a book together that helps us talk on her level where I have often been unable to express to her the importance of some of these issues (especially hygiene and eating...somehow she thinks books must be right so maybe Mama isn't that dumb after all since the book agrees with what I have been saying for the past couple years). I won't embarrass her by sharing the private questions and answers we have talked about, because she does read this from time to time, but to all you moms of girls in this precarious time of life, don't hesitate as I did... having these times together is SO helpful. It has opened the door for some communication between us that she wasn't sure how to put into words and I have been able to grasp a little more that she is in fact becoming a young woman and I have to let her try some things and that it's okay to guide her towards becoming a woman. I'm making it a point to help her find the fun in being a girl and wearing skirts, or make up, or how to do fun things with her hair.

She isn't grown up yet, but she's getting there and I want to be by her side the whole way.



Avery, this is a special note to you as you snoop around my blog:

I love you baby! I love singing to Taylor Swift with you. I love playing Fashion Party on the Wii. I love that you care about your sisters, even though sometimes they make you so mad you hit (I don't love that you hit sometimes). I love that you want to spend time with your silly mama. I love spending time with you. I love it when you talk to me. I love when we get to shop together. I love fixing your hair. I love looking at your baby pictures. I love swimming with you. I love getting to watch you grow up. I love how well you adjust to new places. I love walking in to see you sleeping with your glow worm. I love that God put you in my life!