“I’m not going to the Valentine’s dance,” my daughter announces, and crosses her arms mulishly against her chest.
“Why on earth not?” I ask, mystified. “You went last year, and you had fun.”
“Last year,” she informed me, “I was a kid. I’m grown up now.”
Coming from an eleven-year-old, that’s rich. But I don’t argue. I know she’s starting to notice boys (although she won’t admit it), and we’ve talked about the possibility of getting her first bra soon. While she’s all for it, my own feelings are decidedly mixed.
I don’t want to see my little girl grow up.
Oh, I know – it’s inevitable, everyone has to grow up, after all – but if there was a way to keep her eleven forever, I’d take it.
Because I know that the things we share so easily together now – going out for pizza, discussing the merits of One Direction versus Justin Beiber, reading our favorite books (Jody Picoult for me, Judy Blume for her) as we lay on opposite ends of the sofa with our feet entangled – will soon enough come to an end.
I foresee arguments, slamming doors, mood swings, and teary accusations. ‘You never let me do anything!’ ‘All the other girls get to [fill in the blank], but not me!’ ‘You just don’t understand!’
And the ever popular, ‘I hate you!’
I know these things will happen, because I’ve been through them before… with my own mother. I can still hear myself shouting, “Why can’t I date yet? Why do I have to wait until I’m fifteen? Why do I have to wear these stupid clothes/shoes? Why can’t I stay out past midnight? Why, why why?”
Things were rocky between my mother and me for quite a few years. We didn’t talk, we snapped; we didn’t spend time together, we went out of our way to avoid each other. ‘You think you know it all,’ mom would say with a contemptuous curl of her lip. ‘But you don’t. You just wait.’
You just wait.
But boy, was she right. Wonder of wonders, I really didn’t know it all. Eventually, a couple of the other girls – the ones who’d been allowed to date at thirteen, the ones who’d stayed out past midnight – got into trouble with the law, or struggled to pass their coursework at school. They didn’t get into the colleges they wanted. One of them got pregnant. The bad choices they’d made had seriously side-tracked their lives.
And I realized I was glad I hadn’t been allowed to make those same choices. Because I know now that I was far too young then to really understand – or more importantly, to deal with – the consequences of those choices. Life sometimes teaches us harsh lessons. And at fifteen, I wasn’t remotely ready to learn them.
And my mother, bless her stubborn heart, knew that.
In time, mom and I mended our fences. We began – cautiously – to talk. We went shopping, and even spent the occasional Saturday afternoon getting our hair done. It was nice, almost like old times.
But it was never quite the same as it was when I was eleven.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the dance?” I gently prod my daughter. “We can go shopping and buy a new dress, if you like.”
She rolls her eyes. “Mo-om, no one wears a dress to school dances anymore! Can I get some new leggings, and maybe a new shirt? I saw a red one in the Delia’s catalog that I really like.”
“Of course you can.” I kiss the top of her head. It smells faintly of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. All too soon it will smell of expensive hair products with exotic ingredients like coconut and jojoba and awapuhi. All too soon she won’t even let me kiss the top of her head.
So I breathe in the baby-fresh scent of her hair, trying to hold it in my memory, glad that we have this moment.
“Can we make some cupcakes?” she asks hopefully. “With sprinkles? And those little tiny candy hearts?”
“Okay.” And as I push myself off the sofa and follow her into the kitchen, I know it won’t always be this easy. Cupcakes won’t always resolve our differences.
But today? We’ll make a mess in the kitchen and lick the mixing bowl and get flour in our hair, and we’ll laugh at each other and share silly jokes and confidences.
And I’ll have one more sweet memory to store away for the future.
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