I've been watching closely for signs, ever since she turned 10.

Have you noticed any changes in your friends lately?

11.

My friends are starting to get boobs.

And even more, after she turned 12.

I watched her friends grow curvy.

It's interesting.

Yeah.

And their moms told me, one by one, that their daughters were getting their periods.

She just told me she had had it.

They had sits on their chins and little bra straps showing under their t-shirts.

Probably kind of uncomfortable.

Can't be.

Next to them.

Do you feel you are in the cusp of womanhood?

My daughter still looked like a little kid.

I don't know what that means.

But then, right after the world shut down last spring,

and we were together all the time, stuck at home for work and school,

something changed.

I was sitting on the living room couch next to my 12-year-old when it hit me.

There wasn't anything specific I could point to.

...