What to do when your little girl starts turning into a young woman....

OK - maybe not quite young woman, just yet.

Gosh - I'm so not ready for that.
Sadly, ready or not - our little girl is definitely headed down maturity row.

A few months ago, my daughter was prancing around the living room in her jammies & I caught a glimpse - a horrified glimpse of....budding boobies!

Oh nooooo.  Not yet!  I'm not ready!  No, she's just - wow, she's 10 already 10 - but still too young for boobies, right??

I looked at my husband with horror in my eyes.  He hadn't noticed.

He still looks at our daughter as the tiny little princess who crawled over to his side of the bed, pulled herself up and whacked him on the head saying g'morning daddddy.  He sees sparkling light and rainbows surrounding her along with the glow of something heavenly.  Nothing at all mature or womanly.  The horror....

After she went to bed, I calmly asked him, "Did you see that??  Did you notice that she's getting boobs?"
You could almost hear a full on car crash scene in his head.  His face turned to something dark, scared even.  "Boobs?
I think I may have seen a tear come to the corner of his eye as he digested the information.

It was time for me to take charge.  I'm the mom - the female in the house.  The one with the knowledge of the girlie stuff.

When my son was going through this, I went the clinical route.  His father and I were divorced - he wanted to know, so I did the best I could to give him the proper information, as someone who doesn't share the same plumbing.

The girl should be easy, right?

Gosh - I have to tell her something?  But what??  My mother never had these conversations with me.  She let me find out about things just like everyone else - on the streets.  I didn't know about what was going to happen with my body.  Well, I had some idea - but looking back, there are sure a lot of things I know now that I wish I'd been taught.  Instead of learning the hard way.

Suddenly the shower scene from Carrie flashed through my head.  For God's sake, a paper cut can drive this child into such a tizzy you'd think she'd severed a limb.  No, no - this can't happen to my little girl!  I need to take action - NOW.

So while my husband slipped deeper into his depressive state, still digesting the reality of our daughter's pending maturity - I formulated a plan.

I waited for what I thought was the proper opportunity to have a discussion.  For all you parents out there reading... as a heads up, there is no proper opportunity for this discussion.  If you're ready - they're not.  If they're ready, you're not.  You just need to go with it.

Now I, if you haven't noticed, am very bold and forward.  If you ask me, I'm going to tell you.  Straight out as I see it.  This is how I approached the situation, head on with bold confidence.

No, Mom - No!  Please stop talking!

My daughter - HORRIFIED!
No matter what question I asked, she blushed.  She shut down - she squawked MOMMMM STOP!  No, no - that's gross.  I don't want to talk about that, or that, or that....

Oh for crying out loud.
Is this why my mother didn't deal with it?

I decided to take it slow.  We started with leg hair, which was relatively easy and started working our way to the more difficult stuff.  Slowly, one topic at a time.

I've had to totally tone down my "in your face" - here it is, all of it style and slow it down to what she can take, a little at a time.

I am feeling much more secure that my child does understand what's going on with her body.  The baby steps I've taken have also given her a little more security in knowing that she can come to me with the things that are totally freaking her out and I can handle it.  I'll know what to do & I'll point her in the right direction.

Was the getting to this point easy?  Nope.  Has daddy fully recovered yet?  Nope.  Is the first boy to come to the door to pick her up going to get the "what the HELL do you want?"  Yeah, I'm pretty confident of that....(not too soon, please - she's only 10)

For now - she's good. I'm good.  We're good.  Daddy will just have to suck it up and deal with it.

Just like the rest of the daddys of daughters on the planet.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Smoochies!

~Jenn