Becoming "That" Age

So, we were all sitting around the dinner table, which is a pretty normal thing around my house. (No really, it is,) and the subject of conversation turned to how family genetics are a strange thing. For instance, Little Heart has straight, dark blond hair and little pixie ears, like my mom. Tiny Dancer has lighter blond hair, that is slightly wavy, like mine, but more coarse, like her daddy's. Evil Genius has a whole head full of very light, very fine, very curly hair that tends to get a little frizzy so that she occasionally resembles the Mad Scientist that she aspires to be. Both TD and ED have blue eyes from their father's side of the family but the older one has dark blue while the younger one has eyes that are so light they can turn almost clear. It was interesting to them how they could all look so different and so similar at the same time.

The subject then turned to my three sisters and the variety of traits they inherited from different branches of our family tree. #1 Sister is very thin and fair, with long limbs and fingers, but dark blond hair, and the same pixie ears of my mom. #2 Sister (the fourth child in my family) is the shortest of all of us and has olive tone skin, brown hair, a medium build, and a round face. #3 sister (the youngest) was the smallest of all of us as a baby, but she is now the tallest. She has straight light blond hair, fair skin with freckles, and has managed the perfect combination of slender frame and curves. I of course got the medium blond hair, medium fair skin, and more than my fair share of curves. They all can shop in the kids' section of the store, while I go to the Petite Woman's area. All of us have hazel eyes but each of us has a slightly different color combination ranging from bluish gray-green to brownish with gold flecks.We all have very similar facial features but it looks like someone took a copier and messed with the color and size adjustment to create each of us. (Just for the record, so you don't believe we actually did strangle him at birth, the middle child of the family is a boy and he is quite alive and well - with dark hair and skin, and the same hazel eyes, if you were wondering.)

My girls started wondering what they would look like when they got older. Would the two younger ones still look like twins (as they do now) or would one outgrow the other? Would the oldest keep her blond hair or would it darken to brown like my mother's? Of course the next question that would come up in a group of women is What would our little bips, or boobs if you will, look like when we get older? Well, at first I thought Dearest Husband would shy away from this conversation, as he normally does when it comes to subjects concerning most things girlie. But, I guess he was feeling a little brave that night. Or maybe he just decided to have a bonding moment with the girls over dinner. I'm not sure, really. All  I know was the next half hour was focused on the future coming of the Tit Fairy and what it would mean for each of our little darlings one day.

The tale of the Tit Fairy is quite an interesting one. You see, in my family, girls don't age and develop gracefully over the span of months and years, turning slowly from a little girl into a woman, day by day. No, in our family one day you go to bed in a training bra, completely innocent of the gift you are about to receive, and the next morning, Surprise!, you are blessed with a set of C cups and you have no idea where they came from. Lo and behold, the Tit Fairy has visited, and you will never, ever, be the same. Boys who picked on you yesterday, suddenly have brand  new names to call you. Girls who pulled your pony tails will now have the fun of popping your bra straps in the gym locker room, instead. The cute little top you just bought at The Limited Too, no longer fits around your new endowment, and you start to trip on your shoe laces because you can no longer see your feet to KNOW your shoes are untied.

Yes, I remember the day the Tit Fairy visited me. Thank Goodness she visited during the summer. (It was quite a different reception I got going back to school that Fall, I tell you.) It was between my 4th and 5th grade years in school and I woke up one day and knocked my alarm clock over - with my breasts - while reaching to turn on the lamp. That was a momentous and extremely difficult summer for me. My mother was a slim size 6-8 (even after 5 children!) but was just not very blessed in the breast department. I never thought twice about it, and it certainly didn't cause me to think less of her, or consider her less feminine. She was my mom and she wore a padded bra and that was that. Sister #1 is four years my senior and the Tit Fairy had visited her a few years earlier and so I understood what would eventually be happening, but I certainly was not prepared for it. Now there was not one, but two daughters in the house who needed steel belted reinforcement around the chest and Sister #1 simply would not share her bras with me, at all (it turned out to be not so bad, I outgrew her in short order.) 

Sister #2 was visited by this evil wench a few years later and her story was similar to mine. She went to bed one night feeling like a perfectly normal little girl and woke up in quite a different state. While she wasn't blessed quite as generously as her two older sisters were, it was still an enormously difficult burden to bear if you'll pardon the pun. (ok fine, don't)

After relaying these warnings to my young daughters, I was pretty sure I had inflicted enough horror on them for one night. Then, DH chimed in with his own little story to give the girls even more nightmares. He decided to entertain them with his recollection of my youngest sister and her glorious debut into the world of women. Sister #3 is roughly 8 years my junior so she reached That Age about the time our oldest girl was just old enough to walk. Again, it was during the summer and it was back when my whole family eagerly looked forward to the season when the local Renaissance Festival was open and we could all dress up in period costumes and eat turkey legs as big as our heads. Sister #3 leaned toward the more fantasy styled costumes - fairies, pixies, that sort of thing. One weekend she bought an adorable little (I emphasize little) leather halter top from one of the vendors. The very next weekend she decided to wear it, but suddenly it was just a little too tight. How tight, you ask? Tight enough to split down the middle in such a fashion that she had to relinquish it to the scrap bag after that because it was just too indecent for public consumption.

Of course all three of my girls giggled with a mixture of fascination and fear at this point. DH, never wanting to lose a captive audience, continued on with more stories about the shocking change that had overcome the poor girl that summer. She was all knees and elbows (and breasts) after that day and she just wasn't very observant of her surroundings, even before being blessed with a sizable rack. The girl would routinely knock over drinks and  blacken peoples' eyes  by jumping up in excitement and not looking before bouncing. My girls were now rolling at the hilarious stories of #3 and her bounteous bosom.

That was when I felt I needed to give them a stern reminder about why this was such a crucial topic to consider. Laugh now, if you will, at your poor mother with her shoulders permanently marked by bra straps and her back bent from the weight of her DD's. With a direct stare, I pointed at each one of them and reminded them, one day, they TOO would be visited by the Tit Fairy. Be warned, my dear girls. Soon for some and later for others, you will be visited in the night by the most malicious of creatures and you will awake a changed person. To my surprise, they failed to see the seriousness in all of this. With their father snickering at one moment and contemplating the purchase of a new shot gun the next, I can't imagine why.