Livin' The Tweener Life-Part 1
Years ago my friends with daughters and I used to say "I don't want her to grow up too fast." For me, my concern was focused on clothing. No two piece swim suits and no skimpy halter tops, no stretch leggings, and no cutesie tops with sayings like "Daddy's Little Princess". In short, nothing with even a hint of "prosti-tot" fashion would be allowed in the house. Other than that I didn't think about it too much.
Now she's a tweener and surprisingly, I'm still not concerned. However, I am concerned about affording college and retirement considering the cost of clothing at tweener shops. We visited two tweener shops at the mall this afternoon and my wallet is still spinning. Two stores: five tops and one head band=$135.00 on Visa (debit card). Watching my son try on head bands and cheesy chunky jewelry? Priceless. His hair is so long now some of the head bands looked good on him. Got the hair out of his eyes too. For some reason--maybe because I pride myself on finding cheap but nice clothes for myself at Target--I thought the prices would be less. One little teeny sweatshirt was $36. I was amazed.
My wallet is empty but my spirit is buoyed. These stores were both packed with tired-looking moms and bored younger sibs but they weren't stocked with suggestive clothing. Graphic hoodies with some very clever prints, retro Tees, cropped terry sweat pants (the kind that remind me of the ones that Jerry's parents wore in Florida) and tons of camisoles with built in shelf bras crowded the racks. There were many "Buy 2, get one half off" but nothing we picked out qualified for this deal. I was not surprised.
Except for the graphic hoodies and retro Tees, the clothing seemed pretty dull actually. I expected her to hold up some things that would make me bite my tongue, while inside my head, I screamed "oh, my gawd! Over my dead body!" She did choose one of those shrunken zip tops but I nixed it. "Nothing shrunken ever! You're not a Lilliputian!" I asked her later if she knows what a Lilliputian is and she said "no, I just figured I heard you wrong". So much for slinging about literary allusions at the mall. (My younger brother and I got to laughing hysterically the other day over my mother's use of her infamous "turn off that unmitigated trash" command whenever she found us watching something particularly decadent on television. "We must have been the only kids who knew what the word "mitigated" meant before we were school age." Kind of like telling my daughter that I wouldn't buy her any clothing tailored for Lilliputians....
Now that she's 10 I sometimes think I push her too hard to grow up. I want her to feed the pets right on time. I want her to empty the dishwasher without rolling her eyes. I wish she could go downstairs and bring up the clean clothes sometimes but she is currently afraid of monsters that lurk in the cellar so I don't ask. She does have a house key and a cell phone. She texts to one friend who lives in the next town once in a while but generally she has no idea where the phone is and the calls from her BFF go straight into the black hole of vmail. She has a fancy new Macbook laptop and she loves it--but she has already dropped it down the stairs--twice. In other words, she is really 10.
Plus, she is still happy with her shape. Her feet are now big enough that I can splurge on women's shoes for her when I'm feeling flush. I'm afraid she may have inherited my Imelda gene. I keep reading that girls this age are supposed to be terribly modest but she forgets. Sometimes she's modest and sometimes she's not. I like that. She has a somewhat chunky second cousin who is 9 and already wearing a bra. Her cousin is terribly embarassed that she has to wear a bra already. I'm glad to see that my daughter seems at ease with the process of puberty. She sometimes claims that she is the only one in her class who isn't getting breasts but mostly she doesn't much care. She's very enthusiastic about being a girl and excited about "developing" but she doesn't display any anxiety about it. I'm very enthusiastic about that. Like her second cousin, I developed early and it was mortifying. I'm grateful that she won't be going through that although I think she'd have handled it fine.
All in all, I don't think she is growing up too fast. She's probably growing up a bit faster than she would have without the divorce and without a move from the West coast to the east but I still think she's fine. She laughs at Britney's exploits but still loves American Idol. Once upon a time I thought that I could ban AI and life would go on. But then she told me that the watercooler chat at school the next day was always about AI and she never knew what was going on, so I caved. At first I only let her watch the TIVO version and then I caved on that too. I figure it's just like an office environment where only the oddball who doesn't keep up with pop culture is left out. I suppose that American Idol has affected her--made her a little more cynical and a little less sensitive. But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have probably affected her too. I am hoping that Jon Stewart+Stephen Colbert>Britney Spears +Randy Jackson. There is also the question of pop music and its influence but that's a whole other ball of string.
Now she's a tweener and surprisingly, I'm still not concerned. However, I am concerned about affording college and retirement considering the cost of clothing at tweener shops. We visited two tweener shops at the mall this afternoon and my wallet is still spinning. Two stores: five tops and one head band=$135.00 on Visa (debit card). Watching my son try on head bands and cheesy chunky jewelry? Priceless. His hair is so long now some of the head bands looked good on him. Got the hair out of his eyes too. For some reason--maybe because I pride myself on finding cheap but nice clothes for myself at Target--I thought the prices would be less. One little teeny sweatshirt was $36. I was amazed.
My wallet is empty but my spirit is buoyed. These stores were both packed with tired-looking moms and bored younger sibs but they weren't stocked with suggestive clothing. Graphic hoodies with some very clever prints, retro Tees, cropped terry sweat pants (the kind that remind me of the ones that Jerry's parents wore in Florida) and tons of camisoles with built in shelf bras crowded the racks. There were many "Buy 2, get one half off" but nothing we picked out qualified for this deal. I was not surprised.
Except for the graphic hoodies and retro Tees, the clothing seemed pretty dull actually. I expected her to hold up some things that would make me bite my tongue, while inside my head, I screamed "oh, my gawd! Over my dead body!" She did choose one of those shrunken zip tops but I nixed it. "Nothing shrunken ever! You're not a Lilliputian!" I asked her later if she knows what a Lilliputian is and she said "no, I just figured I heard you wrong". So much for slinging about literary allusions at the mall. (My younger brother and I got to laughing hysterically the other day over my mother's use of her infamous "turn off that unmitigated trash" command whenever she found us watching something particularly decadent on television. "We must have been the only kids who knew what the word "mitigated" meant before we were school age." Kind of like telling my daughter that I wouldn't buy her any clothing tailored for Lilliputians....
Now that she's 10 I sometimes think I push her too hard to grow up. I want her to feed the pets right on time. I want her to empty the dishwasher without rolling her eyes. I wish she could go downstairs and bring up the clean clothes sometimes but she is currently afraid of monsters that lurk in the cellar so I don't ask. She does have a house key and a cell phone. She texts to one friend who lives in the next town once in a while but generally she has no idea where the phone is and the calls from her BFF go straight into the black hole of vmail. She has a fancy new Macbook laptop and she loves it--but she has already dropped it down the stairs--twice. In other words, she is really 10.
Plus, she is still happy with her shape. Her feet are now big enough that I can splurge on women's shoes for her when I'm feeling flush. I'm afraid she may have inherited my Imelda gene. I keep reading that girls this age are supposed to be terribly modest but she forgets. Sometimes she's modest and sometimes she's not. I like that. She has a somewhat chunky second cousin who is 9 and already wearing a bra. Her cousin is terribly embarassed that she has to wear a bra already. I'm glad to see that my daughter seems at ease with the process of puberty. She sometimes claims that she is the only one in her class who isn't getting breasts but mostly she doesn't much care. She's very enthusiastic about being a girl and excited about "developing" but she doesn't display any anxiety about it. I'm very enthusiastic about that. Like her second cousin, I developed early and it was mortifying. I'm grateful that she won't be going through that although I think she'd have handled it fine.
All in all, I don't think she is growing up too fast. She's probably growing up a bit faster than she would have without the divorce and without a move from the West coast to the east but I still think she's fine. She laughs at Britney's exploits but still loves American Idol. Once upon a time I thought that I could ban AI and life would go on. But then she told me that the watercooler chat at school the next day was always about AI and she never knew what was going on, so I caved. At first I only let her watch the TIVO version and then I caved on that too. I figure it's just like an office environment where only the oddball who doesn't keep up with pop culture is left out. I suppose that American Idol has affected her--made her a little more cynical and a little less sensitive. But Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have probably affected her too. I am hoping that Jon Stewart+Stephen Colbert>Britney Spears +Randy Jackson. There is also the question of pop music and its influence but that's a whole other ball of string.
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