"Do little girls have to grow up?"

Well it's that time of year when we have to go shopping for new summer clothes, so Joslyn and I went shopping. We set out to find a cute summer outfit that would be fun to wear. As we shopped, Joslyn (My sweet six-and-a-half year old, she always reminds me about the half), began to tell me about how her friends at school are wearing "sports bras", as she calls them. I asked, "Do your friends show you their bras?" and she giggled and said, "yes." I said, "where?" and she told me, "when we go to the bathroom and we show our cute panties too!" Well, I laughed, sounds like typical girl behavior. Then I asked her, "Do you think you need to wear a bra?" She giggled with embarrassment and said, "I don't know, I guess so." I proceeded to tell her that bras were very uncomfortable and not fun to wear, but she didn't buy it. She decided she needed to wear a bra. So, I thought about it for a minute and figured, what can it hurt. A little training bra, something modest and simple. So we head towards the little girls section and begin looking at bras. Of course, Joslyn has a totally different bra in mind than I do. She immediately goes for the fully-shaping demi bra that looks like it already has breasts in it, and they actually have them in little bitty sizes, to my surprise. I show her a little sports bra and say,"this one is cute and pink, let's get this one." But, she grabs the tiny demi bra and says, "I like this one." I begin to explain to her that she does not actually have any little breasts to fit into that bra, so it will not work for her. Well, I turn away and begin looking some more, then she holds up the demi bra and says, "look mom now I can wear it!" She smashed the little demi bra where the breasts would go and made the bra flat! I laughed, and laughed, but she was so serious. Of course I had to tell her that it was not going to work, so we ended up with a little Hannah Montana sports bra. Joslyn was feeling all grown up. Then we headed towards the swimming suits, and as we were looking she makes the comment, "Mom, I need to get all of the things women wear because I am growing up." At this moment, I laughed and said, "not yet little miss thing?" But later, it made me so sad. She is growing up so fast. On another occassion Joslyn made a comment, "I remember when I was six I.....". I said, " you are still six." And she looked at me like I was dumb and said, "Mom, I'm six-and-a-half!" She can hardly wait to be older, but what she doesn't know is that as we get older, we would give anything to be younger. Oh, to be a little girl again! Hopefully I can instill in my precious little girl that she needs to be young while she can, because youth never comes your way again and the only true beauty comes from within and from an understanding of who God is in her life. Why do little girls have to grow up so fast?!! (sorry if the word breasts offends!)