Tonight was Girls’ Night Out, seven year old style. Her brother was invited to a baseball game (if you turn it on right now, you can probably see him, little punk is parked in seats better than I’ve ever been in) so I told my daughter we could do whatever she wanted. We had chicken nuggets and soft pretzels and ice cream, we went shopping for new yoga pants, we picked up some Manic Panic because the pink streak that someone OK me let her get dyed into her hair faded too quickly so we need to re-do it this weekend (p.s. Please don’t leave me comments about the relative impropriety/propriety of letting a seven year old dye pink streaks into her hair, she’s not allowed to wear clothes with brand names plastered on them nor may she get her ears pierced. Different families have different rules.), we bought Barbie’s gourmet kitchen, we had our nails done, and generally Mommy said “yes” to just about everything. The opportunities to do that are so few and far between that it feels like speaking a foreign language, “yes,” “yes,” “yes, yes, yes.” And everyone is happy. Also broke.
In the car on the way home, my daughter asked me, “How did you know when you were grown up? Did you just wake up one day and know?”
Hmm. Huh. Well.
I tried to explain that feeling grown up kind of snuck up on me, and that it happened over time. There were certainly big events, like getting my first job, living by myself, getting married, and having babies that made me feel grown up, but that most of the time, inside, I feel the same as I always did.
It didn’t occur to me until later that the most grown up I’d ever felt was when she asked the question.
