Today my daughter turns 9, and last night, as I peeled her pink-framed glasses off her face and scratched her back at bedtime -- her favorite ritual -- we calculated that she's half-way to 18, the age of independence. 

"I hate being a kid," she says often, angrily, when facing the firm directives of two parents, especially when it comes to her homeschooling.

She also talks a lot about what she'll do when she grows up, probably because we tell her often to aim to be good at something she enjoys and persevere until she can make a living at it.

A few months ago she informed me that she might 'open gates' for her work, since she's learned to do it so well, helping out around the farm. Yesterday, with a tangle of embroidery in a hoop in her hands, she asked me if some people make money sewing. 

"But I'm not sure what I want," she says with a sigh today. "I might just want to live here with you."

Outside, in our part of Iowa, the bur oaks are flush with chartreuse leaves, still small enough and curled at the edges so that they don't yet obscure the delicate skeleton of dark branches. They're turning that deeper green that tells you their tender newness is toughening up, as they unfurl into the elements.

Half-way already. Holy shit.
I might just want to live with her, too.

"Mom, were you sexy when you were a kid?"

Uh, what?
My seven-year-old and I are jockeying for the sink in the bathroom, half-clothed in pajamas, post-shower.

"What do you mean, 'sexy?'"
I'm sort of stalling, sort of not. Chances are she does mean something other than the worst-case scenarios running in my head.

I'm not surprised by her question, though. I'm in better shape now than ever, at age 37, thanks to Pilates training and the international community of fellow students I've discovered in its quiet discipline. The central tenet of the original exercise regimen, developed over decades by an actual guy -- holistic fitness fanatic Joseph H. Pilates -- is that you feel intimately how your body moves and work to balance and challenge it. His favorite workout wear (circa 1920) was a pair of short white shorts -- in winter. He was also photographed performing his exercises in a loin cloth in summer. 

By comparison, my full-length yoga pants and tank tops look like space suits. But still, it's more skin than I let my daughter show at school, usually in observance of the 'noodle strap' rule (no tank tops or shirts with spaghetti straps).

"I mean, did you wear sexy clothes?"

Oh, boy. Here we go. 

"What is 'sexy'?" I parry.

My goal is not to dictate what my daughter does or does not show of her own body, within reason. She's very tall -- her head nearly brushes my shoulder. She has long legs, even by elementary standards. People are going to look at her most of her life, if she continues to grow at this rate.

But I hope she's riveting even if she's not the tallest woman to enter a room.

There is a certain life force -- a purpose, a passion, an ease -- that moves the most striking bodies out there. And I'm not talking just about athletes or celebrities who are good in front of cameras. It's command of one's self that only comes of practice, self-confidence, and strength -- inside and out.

You pursue it on your own, challenged entirely by your own resistance. As in Pilates practice, you cannot better yourself simply by contrasting your abilities with those less able. It's all within you. 

Or it isn't.

Anyway, I hope that's what my daughter means.

I let a few beats pass, knowing she will kill the silence in short order.

"So, how old were you when your parents got you a phone?" she says, showing her hand.

I'll take it. You just worry about having the maturity to manage a cell phone, just a while longer.

Kids -- especially only kids, I think -- are naturally subject to their parents' constant assessment:
What is s/he good at?
What does she need to learn about life that she's not getting, in the absence of siblings?
How is she 'different' because she's an only?

I've realized recently -- and I want the record to show it -- that my daughter has the unique confidence to question anyone. I'm not claiming she will talk to anyone, because that's not true. If she's intimidated by a situation, she'll go all shy on me and refuse to speak at all. But if a question crystalizes in her mind, you can bet she'll ask it, regardless of social context. She's just honestly interested in the answer. 

I think this trait comes of her 'only'-ness. As duly noted by many adult singletons, only children are perfectly at home conversing with adults in adult language, and mine, anyway, experiences fewer than average situations in which she's talked 'down' to as a child.

Some of my friends -- parents of multiples -- find this annoying -- that kids like mine tend to linger in adult spaces, rather than gravitating toward whatever the kids in the house are doing. But as a professional writer and interviewer, I am jealous of her fearlessness when it comes to just naming what she wants to know. It's a skill I wish I had learned by instinct when I was her age.

Example:
A few months ago, we pulled up to a traffic light in our small town, and waiting in the bike lane alongside Eliza's side of the car was a middle-aged man whose left arm ended at the elbow. He was already at a full standstill, so his disability was practically inconspicuous. He just stood upright, straddling his bike, waiting. 

First, Eliza turned to me and asked how the man could ride without two arms to grip the handlebars. "I don't know -- maybe you'll get to see how he does it when the light turns," I said.

But that wasn't good enough. Next thing I knew: 'Bszzzzzzzzzzh," she was opening her car window.

"What happened to your arm?" she asked, point-blank.

Startled, the rider, lowered his sunglasses so she could meet his gaze and said simply,
"I was born this way. I don't have a hand on this arm." 

"So, how do you get started?" Eliza continued, unfazed. "On your bike? I broke my leg and had two casts. The first one up to here," she said, pointing at her thigh in the car, which the man couldn't see, "and then I had a short cast down to here," she said, patting her knee.

The rider smiled and asked how she broke her leg (ice skating), then began balancing one foot on a pedal as the light turned.

"I'll show you how I do it," the man said, grinning. He winked at her, put up his shades and slowly, carefully, pedaled to full stride. 

As we passed him on the street, Eliza stuck her hand out and waved. Then she turned to me and recapped the whole thing, as though I hadn't heard. 

"But, how does his ring his bell, Mama?" she asked as soon as she finished. "Do you think he can do no hands?"

"I don't know, honeybee," I said. "You might have to ask him."