5th Grade Talent Show

A story for my 5th grade daughter:

Picture this, I'm in 5th grade and it's time for the school's Annual Talent Show. My best friend Wendy and I had worked out this great (;-> ) dance routine to one of our favorite Captain and Tennile songs. Wendy and I practiced on weekends and after school until it was dark. Our bodies were different sizes and we desperately wanted to look coordinated. We were devoted.

I was a full foot taller than Wendy, actually I was a full foot taller than everyone in my class. It had been that way for a few years and I was doing my best to deal with it. But there were times when I would walk with my shoulders slumped just to appear shorter, in my own mind anyway. However, my mother, and my friends, wouldn't let me get away with it and would poke me in-between my shoulder blades to straighten up. (I thank them to this day for doing that!)

Not only was I taller than the others in my class my body seemed to be, well, developing faster than the other girls. I just didn't want to deal with it though, so I ignored it.

Comes the night of the big Talent Show and Wendy and I are ready. We have our hair perfectly feathered, our lips have on 5 layers of Bonnie Bell Lip Gloss, and we're wearing T-shirts with the name of our duo "Paradise" (in rainbow letters!) we had printed just for the occasion.

When we hit that stage we loved every second of it! We were groovin' and movin'. We were jumping and sliding. American Bandstand here we come! The applause sounded like a dream and we smiled and hugged each other as we ran off stage.

Our mothers were there to greet us with hugs and cheers. My mother took me aside. As she held me tight in her arms, she whispered in my ear "Honey, tomorrow we're going shopping for a training bra."

Oh. That's why those boys were smiling.