Some change is bad, some is good. Some change is unexpected. Some is necessary. Inevitable. Bound to happen.
Change is our destiny. Whether we like it or not.
We've learned a lot about changes this year. And today, The Redhead learned a little more. A lot more. Perhaps more than she wanted to know.
Perhaps even more than I wanted her to know.
She learned all about the changes little girls embark on as they become a woman. Oh yeah, I'm referring to that change. And like so many little girls before her, she was not amused. She was even disgusted. Disturbed. Maybe even embarrassed, although she said she wasn't. She said it was "just disturbing" and "nasty."
All of this started a couple weeks ago when she brought home a paper requesting our signature. I knew this was coming. In Kansas, they had such a discussion in the fall. Here, we had the option for her to skip it and go to a dental hygiene lecture instead, but she was interested in what possibly could be going on, what could be so bad that her friends were saying, "there is NO way I'm going to that." At that point, she had every intention in going. She just kept asking us, "it's not bad, is it?" And during dinner, we just kept repeating, "not bad, just embarrassing."
I was in middle school, not fourth grade, when I was blessed with this humiliating lesson. It was during gym class and I remember hiding the pamphlets and the samples and never wanting to mutter a word of this to anyone. I certainly wasn't going to mention it to my parents. While my mother liked to occasionally embarrass me with such nonsense regarding that awful word of "puberty" I just kept pretending I heard nothing. As far as I was concerned, the topic was pure evil, and if I had known Harry Potter at the time, I would have likened it all to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
The Redhead is not me though. When I walked her home from school yesterday, I started with, "so....how was it??" Because I knew she'd tell me. She's a different sort of child. She's an intriguing child. And unlike me, she'll discuss just about anything with her parents, except ask us if she can have a play date, or something like that, because for whatever reason, she is concerned those are the types of things that will get her in trouble. But a discussion such as this? Oh no. We got to hear all about it. Her father too. Multiples times. She even made me look at the hand-outs, and how they had to write in the words, "vagina," "anus," "bladder," and "urethra" on one of the diagrams. I'm serious! They also had to locate the ovaries, uterus, Fallopian tubes, and pituitary gland. I saved the worksheets, because there was no way I was letting something this golden out of my grasp.
The common descriptive word used by her yesterday was "nasty," but pronounced, "NAST-TAY" with a lot of zest behind it. She also liked "disturbing," "disgusting," and I about died when she told me it was "things I didn't plan on knowing until I was A LOT older. I did not need to know how babies were made today." I also loved when she followed with, "I thought I had a few years before I had to learn this disturbing information." In the car, she was talking about tampons. Tampons. And their uses. And "how when you're even older, they have even bigger pads." While Mister Man was driving. She put it all out there. "We even had to hear about breasts. BREASTS! That's so nasty!" "They kept telling us all these places hair would grow. NASTY!" "You bleed DOWN THERE. That's SO NASTY!" I'm thinking her thought was, if she had to listen to it, it's our turn. I kept going back in forth between wanting to laugh and that urge to throw up.
Much like The Redhead, I'm not looking forward to this upcoming change either. Even if it isn't for several years. Sure, it seems soon to start this with fourth graders, but like they told her, and she then consequently told us, a lot of girls start this as early as eight or nine. I know quite a few who have. With any luck, she'll be in high school by the time she encounters such changes, just like her mother. But she's growing up, and it happens to everyone. We evolve. She's evolving. Her knowledge is evolving. And even though I'm not looking forward to it, I just need to enjoy the ride until we get there.
But when asked about the dental hygiene lesson, she said her friends were bored and she heard some people even fell asleep. She told me, "I'll take disturbing over boring any day. That's just the sort of person I am."
I sort of hope that part never changes. Because I'm rather fond of the child who doesn't shy away from "disgusting" topics and gets excited feeling sheep organs and petting giant cockroaches. And if you think I'm being random and funny, that actually happened. Just tonight. Yeah, I really hope that part never changes.
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