Growing Up

My five-year old wore a bra for the first time yesterday.

   

Just so you're not misled, she's a relatively normal five-year old. I mean, she's not overly endowed or anything.

   

But the night before, we had had friends over for dinner, and their twelve-year old left about four good-sized bags of hand-me-down clothing. Yesterday morning, Lily (the five-year old) got to the clothes before I did.  We all loaded into the car to head to the farmers' market and other various places. At one of the stops, I noticed she looked a little . . . bumpy.

  

"Lily? How many shirts do you have on?" I asked.

  

"Well, I have this one," she said, pointing to her blue striped shirt. "And under it I have this," she said, pulling the spaghetti strap of a hot pink tank top. "And under that, I have this," she said, pulling the thin strap of a . . . well, I guess it's a . . . is that a bra?

  

"Oh. OK," I said, trying not to laugh.

   

When we got home, I told Ethan that Lily had on quite a few articles of clothing.

  

"Yeah," Lily said to me. "It took me a while, but then I finally figured out that little thing was a num-num shirt."

   

Uh-huh. You've got it all figured out. And you've got the vocabulary to prove it.