“I’m not a baby anymore, Mommy!” proclaimed my seven year old a few months ago. My heart sank. I know she’s not a baby, but she will always be my baby. However much I revel in her accomplishments, a part of me will always want to keep her close and protected, and yes, small.
As it turns out, my daughter’s statement preceded a very benign request for tank tops for layering “like the big girls.” I sighed with relief. I can handle tank tops. I have no problem with the layered look. So, we headed off to the mall in search of a couple of white tank tops. Simple, right? The two of us trotted into one of our favorite children’s stores and quickly found an entire rack of tank tops in a rainbow of sherbet colors. I soon found her size, but since she is a big girl now, we thought it best to head to what my daughter refers to as the “trying on room.”
I followed her and watched the little angel wings of her shoulder blades flexing as she struggled out of her t-shirt. She pulled the tank top on easily and tugged it down over her enviably flat little belly. It fit. I smiled at her in the mirror over the top of her head. Her brows were drawn together in a scowl that exactly matched her Daddy’s. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “It looks good.”
“It’s crushing me,” she replied. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. In my defense, this is the child who once tried on sixteen pairs of sneakers in four different shoe stores before finding a pair that did not pinch her delicate toes.
I bent to adjust the armholes and that’s when I saw it—a tiny built-in shelf bra. What was that doing there? Had I wandered into the teenage section? I checked the tag—size 6X. No problem there. My little girl continued to tug at the tank top. “I can’t breathe,” she proclaimed melodramatically.
We peeled off the tank top and put the t-shirt back on. As I placed the rejected tank tops back on the rack, I flipped through the selections, looking at other sizes. Sure enough, tank tops for girls in sizes 4 and 5 also included built-in bras. What madness was this?
