Bra's, and Birthdays, and BooBee's . . . . Oh my!

I've never been one to dread, fear, or cry over my kids getting bigger. This week was a perfect example of why.

1. Bra's - A few weeks ago I picked up the two girls from dance. This is usually Dad's job, but he was working late so I got the privilege this one time. Due to the circumstances of the day, after picking up the girls I took all the kids out to dinner. As I sat at the table across my from almost 9 yr old in her dance attire I couldn't help but notice that it was definitely time to be thinking about a bra. Yes, she is still little, and she only needs to wear one while in her tight fitting dance attire. But I wasn't that much older than her when I started wearing one, and I completely skipped those cute training ones and went straight to serious sizes. So this part of her journey wasn't all that shocking to me. I just did what had to be done and scheduled a "girl's day" with our T.

Before the big day I'd schemed a little with my sister in law about how we'd let the almost 9 yr old pick the cutest one and get the matching panties and how she'd love being oh so very girly with us. That isn't exactly what happened. We dropped the other kids at Grandma's to play and headed off to the store. We wondered to the bigger girls section in the back, and I made a beeline to what we needed. I wasn't dreading what was going to happen but I certainly was okay with getting it over with and onto the other fun things of girl's day. The big almost 9 year was about as excited about her new adventure as I was. So she hid in the headbands and we had to drag her over to pick and choose. This was my favorite comment. Me: Look at this cute Hello Kitty one. Kid: Ew gross mom, who wants Hello Kitty there?

In the end she picked out an aqua blue sports bra that will work perfectly to keep her modest at dance. Then she reacted totally age appropriately when T & I shopped a little for the bigger girls with a little boredom and tired feet. At the end of the activity we took her to USwirl. When we got home that night she asked when she could go on another girl's day. I asked if she liked the shopping. She said, "Nope, but the ice cream was awesome." At least she learned one important lesson, girl's days are always all about the food.

2. Birthday's - The birthday season that I've talked so much about is finally upon us. The oldest child is now 11. A few months ago his friend turned 11, and got the World's Coolest Gift for an 11 yr old and my kid wanted it. But it was a little more expensive than what we usually spend. So when I saw an ad for $20 off the World's Coolest Gift I snatched it up, even though it was 6 months before the kid's birthday. Then we spent those 6 months talking about how the World's Coolest Gift was kind of expensive and we weren't sure that we could afford it. Friday night we were celebrating the birthday with the in laws. He'd received a Lego set and an accessory for the World's Coolest Gift. While the family discussed all the ways use the accessory other than with the World's Coolest Gift, I snuck out to the car to get the present we'd hidden for so long. When he opened it, he jumped up and down (imagine the old school Toyota jump), hugged everyone in room, and couldn't stop saying "Thank you." Yep I got the World's Coolest Gift, total mom win.

3. BooBee's - As you would imagine with all the excitement of event #1 we'd be talking a little bit about privacy and why you need to wear a bra with our girls. So now that you have that background. While the oldest one was playing with the World's Coolest Gift. T was reading a book to the twins. It was a bad Disney joke book from the 70's. One of the jokes went like this. What is a BooBee? Kid #3 looked at T. Then she looked at me. T repeated What is a boobee? Then kid #3 sheepishly looked at her chest and pointed to the appropriate area. We all laughed. The real punchline was a bee who scares flowers. I think ours was much better.

Oh my. See growing up is fun to do. Fun to do, to do, to do!