Growing Up

My daughter is very social little girl who has a standard list of questions she loves to ask new people she meets. Her questions typically are, “How old are you?” “What’s your favorite color?” “What color is your house?” and, “What’s your favorite food?” My daughter is also, for some reason, mortified at the thought of puberty; she is only four-years-old. She’s always saying startling things to me like, “I don’t want big boobies.” Or, “I don’t want hair on my pee-pee.” Surely, she sees her mommy with the big boobs – but I can only guess that her step-mother must have ‘something’ worthy of a National Geographic pictorial for the other unwelcome change. I have been able to keep her anxiety at bay, a little bit, by telling her she is a long, long, way off from having any of these ‘big girl’ things. So now fast forward a bit and picture us checked in at a luxury resort in Beaver Creek, Colorado. We are standing at the concierge desk with about twelve people, within earshot, in the lobby. My daughter, Kaylie, begins to strike up a conversation with the young, female concierge and begins her usual questions, “What’s your favorite color?” followed by, “What color is your house?” Then Kaylie asks, “How old are you?” The concierge tells her that she is twenty-eight. With to which Kaylie very loudly, and excitedly, replies, “Well you must have hair on your pee-pee!” “Do you have hair on your pee-pee?” “Do you?” The concierge looks at me, bug-eyed, red-faced, and speechless – I mean how does one recover from that sort of embarrassment anyway? A simple apology and an awkward chuckle was all I could muster up, as I pulled my daughter away explaining that we don’t ask people that type of question!

Marie C.