So, the thing is...  I need one helmet and one set of kneepads, size zero.

I'm not kidding.  Smiley Jane, who turned nine-months-old on July 11th, is taking her first steps.  Color me turning gray as we speak.  Seriously.  I am truly going gray at an alarming rate all of a sudden and I think it has something to do with the Smiley One's drive to run after her big sister.

The thing is, Jane's not ready to walk.  I mean, she pulls up on the couch and then turns loose and crashes to the floor as she tries to take steps.  There is no waiting to get her balance.  There is no cruising all along the couch first.  There is only Jane's unbelievable WILL to walk unassisted, by GOD, if the people closest to her would quit trying to KEEP HER DOWN.  I've never seen a child so focused.  It's exhausting just to WATCH, much less the part where I lurch after her, trying to save her from really hurting herself.  I keep trying to gently redirect her, or to hold her little hands and walk with her, but there's no stopping her.

I had a little help this week, though.  My niece Michelle was visiting.  She's about to turn fifteen and she's just beautiful.  A cheerleader.  Smart.  And she's very calm, to which my oldest daughter, Ana, really responds.  Definitely some hero worship going on there.  Ana followed Michelle around like a little puppy.  And Michelle really tolerated her very well, especially considering that Michelle is an only child and isn't exactly used to someone younger who wants to touch and borrow all of her stuff.  (It is ironic that Jane feels the same way about Ana and meets with a much less gracious reception, but such is the world of sisters.)

It was really nice having Michelle here.  She actually WANTED to come and arranged the whole thing with her parents.  I would have suspected a little hero worship on her part, too, but since she's fourteen, I think I have been relegated to the category of Uncool Adults.  I confess to mounting some reconnaissance about teenagers (and teenage girls especially) since mine are not so far away from that.  (Heck, at the pace Jane is developing, she'll be stealing my car keys in about six weeks.)  I know it SEEMS like it's a long time from now but everyone I know says these years go by in the blink of an eye and then suddenly, there I'll be --the totally gray-haired mom of two teenage girls.  (And the wife of a man who has implemented more security measures around our house than Alcatraz but that's another column.  Let's just say that any teenage boy who wants to date Ana or Jane better have Jane's single-minded focus about walking.)   

At any rate, it's been reassuring in some ways to get to know the new millennium's version of a teenage girl.  She's smart and she's savvy and she's watched enough Oprah to be able to pepper her conversations with some pretty amazing psychological insights.  But she's incredibly frightening in other ways.  For one thing, today's fourteen-year-old girl is yesterday's EIGHTEEN-year-old.  I'm not just basing this on Michelle; my neighbor has a fourteen-year-old daughter, too.  When *I* was fourteen, I was still mostly a child.  I still didn't use make-up, or care much about fashion.  I still played dodge ball in the cul-de-sac until my mom called me in for dinner.  I LIKED boys, but kind of the same way I liked LIZARDS.  From a distance.

But today's fourteen-year-old girl is definitely interested in boys in a romantic way, and she's a lot more worldly than I was (am.)  Michelle's mom (who is one of my all-time favorite people ever) is divorced from my brother and has done a great job of raising a very levelheaded girl.  Michelle's relationship with her mom is to be envied; they are very close and they talk about everything.  Which is fortunate because fourteen seems to be the age where the hormones just take over and logical brain function ceases.  Because Michelle is so pretty, she has all these boys on a string and she plays with them with the same fascination and contempt that our cat plays with any unfortunate bug that crosses her path.  Every night of Michelle's visit, she disappeared to spend hours Instant Messaging the boy du jour. Flirting on-line --that's how the Still Carless woo each other these days.  On the bright side, I guess her boyfriends at least have to be semi-literate.  But it made me wonder if she was ready for the WORLD with which she is flirting.  Michelle kept talking about girls her age having babies.  Fourteen-year-olds no longer content themselves with kissing, you know.  (Did I sound brave when I said that?  Because the thought fills my entire being with fear.)  I would hate to see my niece try to take any steps before she’s ready and come crashing to the ground.  There are some boo-boos that moms can't kiss away.

I did my part with Michelle, though.  I tried following in the footsteps of my friend and fabulous OB/GYN, Dr. Steven Solomon, who frequently takes his thirteen-year-old with him on errands and opens the subject by saying “So, I treated a fourteen-year-old today for gonorrhea…”  (He says his daughter just rolls her eyes now and says “Yeah, Dad, I get your point.”)  Michelle and I went for dinner one night and I mentioned I was already worried about my girls combating the societal pressure to have sex before they're ready.  And then I told her the real scoop about sex for women --that it's just not any good until you're in your mid-twenties or older.  I don't mean for boys --it's pretty much good for them from the get-go.  But for girls, well, it's JUST NOT THAT FUN until closer to thirty.  Thirty-FIVE maybe.  And I wish someone had told me about this when *I* was her age.  I'm not sure she bought it but at least I tried to give the old “Just Say No” message a new spin.

So, Jane is starting to walk and Michelle is starting to date and I'm going gray.  And none of us is really ready for this new stage but there seems to be little we can do to thwart Mother Nature.  As for MY girls and dating, I'm depending on their dad to launch a spectacular espionage system so that the minute some boy touches one of them, Parental Revenge can be exacted.  Right now, he has strategically positioned a three-iron by the front door.  He figures if he simply beats the first boy senseless, word will get around school and no other boys will be brave enough to try. 

In the meanwhile, I’m going to borrow Jane's helmet to cover my gray.  And I'm going to hang onto my girls as long as they'll let me, to keep them from crashing to the ground. And I'm going to take a lot of solace in the fact that at the airport as Michelle was leaving, she leaned over and said “Thank you so much for having me.  I really enjoyed our talks.  And I can definitely say that it's going to be a long, long, LONG time before I have children.”

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this free e-mail newsletter, send e-mail to barb@sothethingis.com.  (Your address will not be used for any other purpose.)  If you would like to forward this column on, please do so in its entirety.  Feedback welcome. 

(c) Barbara Cooper 2001

Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (3) and Jane (nine months).  She lives in Austin, Texas and could probably use a new pair of knee pads herself.