Learning To Take Good Care

Well, we finally located the book---- The Care & Keeping of You. This is the tome Miss Olivia and her BFF, Kai, have been pouring over in school, learning all about the impending changes of their pre-pubescent bodies and psyche. We found it at Targé and I must admit, it’s quite comprehensive and thankfully emphasizes the need to take good care of your body and it will take good care of you. This is a lesson I often need to be reminded of myself.

Olivia’s pleased as punch to have a copy of her own, but every day since purchasing the book, she confronts me with what she’s convinced is undisputable evidence of the advent of her changing body.

The other day she informed me that she needed deodorant because her underarms smelled funky. She whipped her arm in the air and instructed me to sniff her armpit. I smelled nothing. She then dug two fingers into her armpit, then thrust them in front of my face and asked me to sniff her fingers. I refused. I promised to be the first to let her know when I caught a whiff of her underarm funk. This morning while getting dressed for school, she inspected her nipples in the mirror behind the bathroom door and asked me if I, too, could see her breast buds. Again, I had to play the role of the naysayer and inform her that, no, her nipples look the same to me.

Again, I’m happy Olivia is comfortable coming to me to discuss these things and I’ll work hard to foster these ongoing exchanges, but I can see now it’s going to be a memorable ride.