Connection Made

This is my little girl, who is a whopping 10 and entering 5th grade. She is growing up so fast. Last week, in preparation for school shopping, she humored me and tried on ALL of her clothes. While we were at it I brought up the subject of girls wearing bras and asked her if she was interested in doing that this year. She said yes. Okay then.

Yesterday we bribed the kids with ice cream if they would accompany us to the dump, and then decided to do our school shopping while we were in town. Claire raised her eyebrows at me and mouthed "bra" and I nodded yes, and then to her chagrin I told Mark out loud and in front of her that we needed to go bra shopping. At the store we found a couple of sizes of a design that Claire liked and she and I headed to the dressing room while the boys wandered to the school supplies. When I got inside Claire would not join me but instead stood outside the door looking at me. "Come on" I said. To which she replied "I want to do it alone."

The girl who hasn't wanted to do one thing alone in ten years is kicking me out of the dressing room. Huh. So I did what any good mom would do; I said "Okay, let me know if you need help" and moved into the hallway. She shut the door and left me standing there, feeling a little sorry for myself and thinking things like how am I going to know if she's smoking crack or pledging sororities if she won't let me in now?

Then when we were walking out together and down the aisle, I had a flashback of being in the same place at a different time, of my mom carrying bras willy nilly through the department store, not even hiding them in any way, while I was mortified and staying five steps behind her. I discreetly rolled the bras around their hangers and crossed my arms over them, and when I found the boys with the cart I nonchalantly slid them in under my purse and started helping Ben pick out markers.