Kallan comes up to me in the store with upward-cast eyes of obsequious hopefulness.
Uh oh.
I look to Mark for explanations, and he avoids my eyes.
Uh oh.
Kallan is reasonable and lovely. “Daddy says it’s up to you. Which means it’s OK with him. So Daddy says to ask you if I can buy a bikini.”
I glare at Mark, but he avoids my glare, busying himself with checking the price tags of various other items in our cart.
Kallan continues, “Last year when you said I couldn’t have a bikini, you said that when I was 9½ , I could get one. So now I am 9½ years old, and this is the one I want.” She holds up a teeny tiny green bikini with white polka dots, “Isn’t it cute?”
“Yes, very cute. And the answer is no.”
“Why?”
“Because I was here for the conversations we had last year about bikinis, and I did not say you could have one when you turned 9½. As I recall, I said you could get a bikini when you had boobs.”
Kallan’s face goes stubborn, “No, you said I could have a bikini when I turned 9½.”
“Sweetie, I did not say that. I know I did not say that. You may not buy this bathing suit.”
Maj is in the background holding up weighing hands of consideration, “When you are 9½ . . . .When you have boobs. Hmmm . . . those two sentences don’t even sound at all alike. Weird how one of you is so confused.”
Kallan ignores her sister, “It’s my money. I will buy whatever I want to buy.”
“Well, then you can buy yourself a ride home.”
“MOM! Why are you so unreasonable? All of my friends have bikinis! All of them.”
“Know what that tells me?”
“What?”
“Tells me that all of your friends are not my children.”
Kallan slumps, “It tells me that you don’t even care if people make fun of me.”
“Mocking builds character.”
She stomps an angry foot, “I am buying this bikini! I don’t want to build character. I want to wear this bathing suit. I AM BUYING THIS BIKINI!”
I reach to take it from her, “No, babe. No, you are not.”
She turns as if to run to the cashiers, “You can’t stop me!”
I speak loudly, “If you want to buy a bikini for the Labrador to wear, that’s all fine by me. A waste of your money, if you ask me. Bathing suit for a dog is just silly!”
Kallan turns to face me and she is livid and loud, “It is not fair that just because you can’t remember what you have said from one day to the next, I have to suffer. You never remember anything you say, and I am left with millions of promises that you NEVER EVER KEEP!”
Hello, fellow Target shoppers!
Yay!
So I follow her through the aisles, calling after her, “Kallan, guess what? When I am way old and decrepit and I really have lost my memory? Guess what?”
Kallan is suspicious, “What?”
“You will show up to take me out to lunch one Friday afternoon, but I will have forgotten that we made this lunch date. So you’ll need to give me a few minutes to get dressed and organized. I’ll pull on my coat even though it’s like 90 degrees outside, because I will have forgotten how to dress for the weather. I will call you Justine, and I will take your arm and you will walk me to the car. You will drive me to the restaurant we always visit on Friday afternoons, and I will ooh and ahhh over all the sights along the way as though they are all brand new. We will arrive at the restaurant and I will ask you if they have chicken salad, which is what I always order. You will usher me to our normal table in the front of the restaurant, and I will pause by my chair to remove my coat. And then you will see that under my coat? I am wearing nothing but a bright green bikini with white polka dots.”
Maj has been listening, “This is why my plan is to pack a lunch when I visit you, Mother.”
Snort!
Kallan giggles and gives up. Puts back the bikini.
I wrap my arm around her as we head to the cashier with our cart.
Kallan looks up at me, “But when I get boobs, Mom? You’re not going to be able to stop me.”
Snort!
Don’t I know it.
Oh wise Kallan. boobs are indeed an unstoppable force. you could get lucky and she could be a late bloomer. or not get much boobage at all.
and Maj? hilarious!
Kallan has been hopeful all today that her genes?
Are of the fast-boobed sort.
Snort!
hah! I hoped that too. at her age. then at 17. then 22…yeah I never did get boobs.
Kallan would not be pleased to hear this story.
At all.
Hee hee!
Poor Mark.
Yes, he totally dropped the “in-this-together ball,” but really?
He doesn’t stand a FUCKING CHANCE against the women in his house.
But Mark, Darling?
You need to figure out your allegiances right quick…
(Here’s a hint: It should always be to the one in which you share a bed. The mini-minions will always turn on you in times of chaos)
Mark regularly drops the “we’re in this together” ball, because he knows that I will pick it up.
Sigh.
I do get tired of being the bad guy all the time.
Mark does love role-playing.
Ahem.
OK, how fun is it to fuck with Mark here in my comments?
Hee hee!
Way fun.
After looking at your tags I have to ask -
What two-piece bathing suits are not bikinis? I thought the two phrases were interchangeable.
Nope.
Tankinis are not bikinis, but they are two separate pieces.
I am also fine with a two piece bathing suit with a sports-bra sort of top.
Kallan wants a BIKINI, as in small triangular pieces of fabric, tweenie padded bra cups, and strings with which to tie it behind her back and neck.
Not even.
Ohhhh. Right. Duh.
I guess the way I always said it was “bikini” and “string bikini”, but I see that that wasn’t accurate, since I agree that a tankini is different.
I actually have never owned a bikini then. What kind of girl am I?!
And by the way?
Kallan is correct.
Most of her friends do have padded-bra string-tied bikinis.
Yeah.
Annoying.
I also would not let my nine year old daughter wear a bikini.
But also?
Neither would my husband, MARK!
It just gets funner and funner, doesn’t it?
I don’t think my Mark would let Kallan buy a bikini if I wasn’t there.
But he would so make me the fun-ruiner as he expressed his regret that, “Mom said no.”
Being the mom in this family is sometimes a pain.
Oh, Kallan. I see now I was a Kallan-esque child.
I prayed for boobs. A LOT.
I am here to tell you, prayers CAN work. But the time frame will not always be to your liking.
String bikinis for children? PADDED string bikinis? Hell to the no.
I was about 12-13, and I am all kinds of hopeful Kallan is on a similar schedule.
Sigh.
As for the other?
I know!
Hell to the no.
Snort!
I was thinking I had a bikini at Kallan’s age, but I realize it was just a 2 piece swim suit with nice ruffles on top to hide the fact I was also flat as a board. My older sister? She got the early boobs.
Yeah a bikini is not so good when you like to swim and you have nothing to hold it in place. Because in all likelihood? You will be soon topless. Or not fully covered.
Embarrassing. Especially when you don’t have anything. :)
That does make sense somehow.
I spent many many summer days at the lake with Maj and Kallan last summer.
And I saw more than a few girls lose their bikini tops as they swam and dove into the water.
Yeah.
No.
Kallan will have boobs soon enough.
Boobs are required.
Your Kallan and my Kaylee…
Two peas in a pod, I swear it.
Kaylee wants boobs so bad… She has a sporty type bra that she wears sometimes and she stuffs it with balled up socks so she can have boobs.
If Kaylee takes after me, she will have no worries in the boob department.
No worries.
At all.
Stasha -
I have these two weights that are heavy rubber balls filled with sand.
Each about the size of a very large grapefruit.
Kallan walks around with those balls tucked into her shirt. Her hands underneath to support them.
I laugh hysterically.
But it is frightening.
Snort!
I don’t know which will be worse…
Boobs or period.
I am scared of both.
ACK!
Do not speak to me of periods!
ACK!
SOOOO glad I have two boys!
No Boobs, no bra’s, no biniki’s, no PMS (‘cept mine) no periods…
Oh and? No paying for weddings! hee hee
BUT I can so remember wanting a bikini and my mom said “Suuurree, but I get to pick it out” Yeah, umm so not good! She got me this bikini with like HUGE Granny panty bottoms and this enormous top
Sigh
I should have just gotten a high cut one piece!
Oh and? remember that video you posted….when Mark was gone with the girls? And you ran upstairs and tried it? You know…the one with the jacket and using her arms as boobs? Tell Kallen to try that….because it’s gonna be a while until she gets those boobs!
That video?
I so showed it to the girls.
Guess what?
The only thing funnier than seeing yourself in the mirror with the huge fake boobs?
Is seeing your nine year old strut around the house with the huge fake boobs that move at will.
So much giggling.
Snort!
“Mocking builds character”. This is totally my new line for Drama Queen. When she says “Everybody is” or “all the kids do”, my response used to be, “OK. No.” I like this a lot better!
That is also my new favorite reply. I usually say something in that spirit to college students who want to complain about things being unfair, but I’ll have to remember this short and snappy one for when I have kids. Filed away.
The idea of you guys telling people that “Mocking builds character” makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The credit for that line goes to my mom.
One of those things I thought I would never ever say.
But now . . . I say.
Gleefully.
If it helps?
By the time I actually got enough boobage to fill out a bikini of any sort, I was eleven (for the record, the only way in which I was ever an early bloomer).
Fifth grade boys are particularly gifted at making you wish those boobs would go back where they came from.
Maybe she won’t want that bikini after all?
Secretly?
That is what I am hoping.
Kallan’s a good swimmer, and the friends of hers who wear these string bikinis don’t swim so much as they lounge about and hope the boys are noticing them.
Kallan is 9.
No.
I am hoping for a few more years of swimming.
Fingers crossed.
The power of the boobs.
Never underestimate them.
Meanwhile – Mark… Mark will pay one day when he least expects it I’m pretty certain. But it’ll be good… and he will learn from it.
M
ps- clothes disappear in the laundry room in my house. I’m not saying to do it I’m just saying there were a pair of “butt-blinged” pants that disappeared after being worn twice here… I just couldn’t live with the fit and the fact they made my 10 yr old’s butt look like J-Lo’s.
I’m not saying I did anything to them I’m saying we lose socks and the odd piece of clothing to the laundry elves all the time…
You know those elves that collect, do, sort and put baskets of clean laundry in the bedrooms.. the ones that get yelled at when there is no clean underwear to be found but LOOK a basket of clean clothes, where did THAT come from?!?!
Not that I did anything… no way… not me..
Mishelle -
Oh, you are evil. Very very evil.
Kallan has difficulty, because she would like her older sister to blaze a trail for her, but Maj is not so inclined.
Maj likes a sensible one piece bathing suit, because she would like to go swimming.
And Maj likes regular jeans and blouses that provide full coverage. Layers, even. And gym shoes or boots.
Kallan despairs, as she would like to be bikini-ed and tight-fitted and booty-blinged.
Really.
Sigh.
The laundry devils, though . . . I will have to remember that.
Bwahahahaha!
I am all sorts of evil – especially is they decide they want to wear the low slung jeans with high cut shirts… I have a fireplace and laundry devils – I am fully prepared to use them.
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
M
ps- the jeans went out in the Big Brothers, Big Sisters Clothing Drive 3 weeks later. I had to remember to put the clothes out AFTER the kids went to school but those jeans made my head explode!!
We have not yet had a pair of sparkle-bootied jeans in our house.
Shudders of horror at the thought.
Ugh.
Sorry I haven’t been around for a while. I had two sick kids, a sick hubs, and I was sick myself. And as I’m sure you know, sick kids require twice the work when you have half the energy. And then there is hubs, who is the worlds biggest baby when he’s sick and wants to be taken care of, as if I already didn’t have enough to do.
Sigh.
Anywho, all I have to say about this post is, good luck with kallan when she’s 16, and I’m glad mine is only 4. Although she already won’t let me pick out her outfits anymore. I have a feeling maj will be pickier with boys, a real ball buster, so you may dodge a bullet there. But kallan? You’re screwed. Actually, mark is screwed :) Good luck mark!
Haley -
We are so screwed.
Seriously.
As for the houseful of sickness?
Shudders of horror at the thought.
I am so glad you guys are feeling better.
I am so glad to see you back!
Yay!
Yeah, bikinis on children = ew. When they get to college they will all be half naked all the time so try and reinforce some modesty while they are still young. No on needs to show that much skin all the time. My future children will be in nice full coverage Speedo swimsuits until they are at least 12. Bwhahaha.
Bikinis on really small children?
Not my thing, but no big deal.
Bikinis on little girls who are too young to be aware of boys in a sexual fashion?
Ewww . . . because all it does is encourage that sort of interaction with boys.
Plus?
No one goes swimming in a string bikini.
I want my girls to swim.
I know I don’t get to be in charge forever. But for right now?
I am still all bossy.
Poor Kallan.
For your sake I really hope she doesn’t develop early! Tons of teeny green polka dot bikinis in your future!
Ack ack ack ack ack!!!!
Oooh. I hate when Hub throws me under the bus like that. Why is it so freaking hard for guys to be the bad guy??
*sigh*
In our house? There is no “wait until daddy gets home…” it’s always “wait until mommy gets home…” Why is it always me that has to deal with the fun-killing fallout? Hmph.
On a side note, I started with the boobage in 5th grade. I don’t remember how old that is…but it was 5th grade. And my parents would’ve had me shot if I’d worn a bikini like that. I was like 24 or 25 before I wore one like that.
I still have it, actually. Only now? It screams if I try to put it on. Sad, really.
Yes, at our house I am the bad guy.
The fun killer.
The disciplinarian.
Honestly, that role works fine for me most of the time.
Except when Mark gets all whingey and behaves as though he would like to be able to grant the girls’ wishes, but he can’t.
Because of mean old mom.
Hmmph.
I will still be mean old mom.
But hmmph.