Journal

And suddenly she looks 16…

36 Comments

My 11-year-old daughter (going on 12 in three weeks here) is in a play at school. Sandra dressed her in the requisite dress, cloak, and make-up, and suddenly my baby girl looked 16 years old. And she’s a pretty stunning 16, at that.

I’ve joked in the past about how I’m going to have to beat potential suitors away with a stick.

I am going to need a bigger stick.

36 thoughts on “And suddenly she looks 16…”

  1. The ones that most need fending off are the ones too stupid to know what that sound means.

    I’d rather not have to actually, you know, KILL ANYONE.

    2. No, no, see, here’s how it works. He comes to the door. He knocks (or yells). You greet him. You inform him he can’t possibly take your daughter to the movies without a car. He points to show that he does, indeed, have a car. You point and shoot to show that he does, in fact, have a pile of scrap. He’ll get the idea.

    3. Which is why you have us… 😉

      Why get your hands dirty when you have a mob?

      I’ll go polish my baseball bat, and practicing saying “No officer, he was here all night…”

  2. My first thought when my little sister announced that she had a boyfriend?

    I wanted kidnap him, carve “Dated Kylie” into his chest, and toss him, hooded and naked onto the front lawn of the high school during the lunch hour from a speeding van.

    I got over it, but made sure that I happened to be practicing sword forms with a friend the first time that he came over. 🙂

    1. DANG- That’s almost as good as Dad answering the door when a “Boyfriend” came over to take elder sister out on a date! …
      (Dad was a cop at the time, and fully dressed- about to go out on patrol.) Funny- the fella never came back….

    2. So basically I’m the only one who has been laughing about the idea of a boyfriend for the 12 year old? I figure if I laugh about it then she won’t take it seriously and if she doesn’t then no harm.

      1. No, no. See, we’re looking into the future. I’m not worried about the boys at 12. I’m worried about the boys at 16-17. I’m not quite so old that I’ve forgotten what I was like at that age. 🙂

  3. Let’s see what I’ve got that I can spare…

    ::opens the Seriously Black Safe, starts rummaging::

    Hmmmm…. no, too small. Nope, too silly ::gingerly places something that looks like the ‘Noisy cricket’ from MIB aside:: hmmm…. This? NO. Brazil is just getting over the side effects from that one…. Nope, that one has too much collateral damage possibilities. ::sets aside the control panel for the Orbital laser:: Ah! Here we go, and I think he’ll like this one…

    ::pull out a “ClueHammer 40K”, hands it to ::

    My last spare ClueHammer 40K. Careful, she’s heavy.

  4. My friend Larry (6’2″, 400 or so pounds) says that when his girls reach dating age, he’ll take the boy aside, and say, “I’ve been to prison. And I have no problem going back.”

    Tee hee! Threats are fun.

  5. You’ve left it too long to implement my strategy:

    My daughter is now 5.
    I need to dig the pit, build the trapdoor, and order some baby alligators.
    I’ll just have time for the alligators to grow up large enough to ‘dispose’ of unsuitable suitors.

    😀

  6. I have a friend whose dad had some fun with a prom date. While they were waiting for her to finish getting ready, the two of them sat down in the kitchen for a talk. During this talk, the dad was polishing and cleaning his shotgun. On the table were a few shells, and one of them prominently had the boy’s name written across it. Needless to say, the boy was a perfect gentleman…

  7. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings…not even Schlock’s Plasgun will be big enough. I know. I’ve got a 19, an almost 13 and a 10. /sigh It only gets worse. /cries quietly
    My middle is the most stunning of all…and only getting more beautiful. And I’m MOM! I’m not even Dad.

    1. Aw come ON! Haven’t you ever heard the song “The Female of the Species is more Deadly than the Male”?
      If you make that female a MOM- you can triple that idea… >:D

  8. At age 24, one of my shooting buddies’ daughter asked me to take her to her prom — none of the dipsticks at school asked her. I got over there, and she, of course, wasn’t ready. Her dad was cleaning a .50 cal Smith carbine. The conversation centered primarily around how the thing was grouping for him, and whether he had any ideas about getting my .58 to tighten up.

    Gun cleaning only scares them if they aren’t fellow gun-nuts. Of course, there’s always mzmadmike’s solution — have the daughter cleaning HER AR15. The pink one.

  9. I know the feeling!

    My daughter is a very mature looking 13 year old, many people think she’s about 16. Additionally she’s intelligent and articulate enough to maintain the illusion during conversation. I know at least two guys who were disappointed to discover that she’s too young for them.

    I too need a bigger stick.

    1. Re: I know the feeling!

      There’s a character like that in one (okay, several, but one in particular) of John Ringo’s Posleen war books – a very mature looking 13-year-old. After she shoots one bonehead who doesn’t understand “No” (not dead, but his knee won’t ever be the same), posters of her appear around the town reading “JAILBAIT – Armed and Dangerous” and she doesn’t have any further problems.

      so if you teach your daughter to shoot… problem solved(?)

      (My daughter is 7 and I’vs already reclaimed my baseball bats from my parents’ garage – even though it’s been a good 20 years since I played baseball.)

      1. Re: I know the feeling!

        I don’t think I would trust my daughter with a gun, even if it was legal. However i suspect her willingness to practice Squirrel Style (go for the nuts!) will be very effective in dealing with guys who are too forward.

        What worries me most are the ones she’ll allow to be ‘too forward’.

  10. That’s impressive. Of course, my goal is to raise perfect little gentlemen who ask her dad, “So, sir, what time would you like her back home?”

    And. . .

    “No, sir. That is not too early.”

    Of course, my eldest needs the social skills first or else the girls will just laugh in his face over a request for a date.

  13. You could always do what a friend’s dad did to one of my dates.

    John was actually a friend from my engineering major days, who had just gotten off a mission. I brought him over to visit Mr. Keswani before we went to see a movie, because I had told John about my friend’s dad, who claimed me as his second daughter, and I had told Mr. Keswani about my friend John, who I met at Texas Tech.

    Mr. Keswani eagerly ushered us inside, and while we were sitting on the couch, he began to grill John about what type of girlfriend he thought he was worthy of – making it quite obvious that he didn’t think John was good enough for me. He asked John all sorts of questions about his future too.

    I thought I was going to die of embarrassment, but John took it with good humor and respectively answered Mr. Keswani’s every question. When we left, I began to apologize to John, who stopped me and said, while laughing, “It’s okay. Now, I know what I am going to do when a guy comes over to date my daughter.”

    I would like to point out that while John took it in stride and we had a blast at the movies, we never went out on another date…

  14. I like a recent cell phone commercial, about a dad talking to his daughter’s date about her Top Eight… You have to see the commercial to get it. I’m having a hard time finding a link to it :-/

  16. Our favorite menacing dad quote is from a t.v. show or movie :
    The Dad stands at the door and says to the boy standing outside the door,
    “I’ve got a gun and a shovel and I don’t think anyone is going to miss you!”

  17. Maybe I’ll understand better if I ever have a daughter, but I’ve never really gotten the whole animosity against one’s daugter’s potential suitors thing.

  18. I understand…

    My daughter is now 15. She has had boys asking her out for the past 2 years.
    Fortunately, she know I won’t let her date until she is 16.
    I also know a great way to reduce dating.
    A Job.
    If she is working, she will have little or no time for dating (until she learns time management that is.)

    1. Re: No pic?

      Welcome, Neli. (esp. since you’re here because I referred you)

      Sorry, but Howard is very careful about separating his children from his web presence in this respect, to the point of only referring to them by nicknames like Gleek, etc. I don’t think there has been a picture.

      Brian

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