Let Me Introduce You to My Beautiful Daughter....

Once, when I was eighteen or so, someone told my mom that I wore my hair and clothes this way so that I could be the polar opposite of her. I think that person was slightly mistaken on my reasoning, but whatever the case, sometimes a mom just has to wonder where their daughter got that funny DNA! (At other times, we know darn well where; we're just hoping that nobody else knows where!)

So now I have my own pre-teen daughter. Thank goodness she is not yet into make-up or "dreamy boys" (at least out loud) or any of that other stuff. (In fact, I frequently have to send her back to the shower to wash her hair better or to actually let soap and water touch her armpits. My daughter still loves dolls and loves to play outside on the swingset and trampoline.

But, things have begun to change ever so slightly. Last week, she denounced the color pink, saying, "I just don't get what little girls see in pink!" (Of course, pink, purple and peach used to be her favorite colors.) In the past couple of days, she's posted this notice on her door: "Tomboys Only". In the lower corner, she's written, "tea parties....ugh!"

Just a little while before I noticed this sign, I overheard a conversation between her and her 6 year old, girly, sister.

11 yo--I love blue and green and brown. Rebecca loves black. It's good to be a tomboy and do things that boys do.
6 yo--Yeah, I'm a tomboy, too.
11 yo--Tomboys like to play outside and get dirty and all of that stuff.
6 yo--Me, too. I like that stuff.
11 yo--We don't like pink.
6 yo--Yeah....
11 yo--And we definitely don't like tea parties....
6 yo--Well, I don't know...I really like tea parties.

And that let the 6 year old out. She so wanted to be like the big sis. But, that tea party bit. She just couldn't concede to that. So, I guess the little one is my girly girl a little longer.

Back to the introduction. My daughter is now a tomboy. And, while I am certainly no clothes horse, we definitely have very different senses of style. If I enforce my "must wear a dress to church" rule, which I usually do, she's very likely to come down in her fancy black dress with the net underskirting, white bobby socks and black mary janes which have been tattered and torn from repeatedly tugging at the straps to get her feet out and which have no heel due heel-walking across the blacktopped parking lot at church. Oh, and from wearing them to school and being a tomboy. On the playground. The finishing touch is the white, warm-up suit jacket with the navy blue piping. (Once, when she came down wearing another equally amusing outfit, I took a picture of her to save for later. You know, when she has her own children and she just cannot imagine what they were thinking when they put that on. But then, my computer crashed and that picture was forever lost. Hmmmm....)

Something else has changed in her personality, and this is big. No, I mean this is really BIG. Just two days ago, she threw...I can barely type the words....she threw...princesses...to the wind. PRINCESSES!!!!!! TO THE WIND! We were driving home from school, and as she was sitting next to me (she can sit next to me now because she's almost as tall as I am!), and she actually told me that she didn't really like princesses anymore. Followed by a very dramatic, "They're always saying, 'Oooohhhhh, look at me!!'" What is THAT???? (I thought that was my daughter's mantra, by the way.)

Then, last night? Last night, my hubby was working, and I took the kiddos to the movies. We saw "Alvin and the Chipmunks", which the older two had already seen, but you know...the experience of the theater (dollar theater)....ahhh, the experience (buttery, sticky floors, squeaky seats, hand sanitizer....) We all sat together enjoying the experience, but during the movie, I looked over past the little guy toward my oldest daughter. Where was she? In the dark, in that sea of little people of varying heighths, I saw the silhouette of my tall, beautiful daughter who laughed just as much as all of the others there, but who really is no longer one of them. She, blissfully unaware of this fact, ate popcorn by the handfuls and guzzled her rare treat of a Coca-cola while mesmorized by the screen. But her mother...I couldn't turn back time. I already knew what I'd like to forget...for just a little longer.