My family is Catholic and that means that summer festivals are upon us.

If you have never been to a church festival you are missing out. There are rickety rides that are run by slightly inebriated carnies and there are games where your kids can walk away with fine prizes like Chinese yo-yos and rubber ducks. Together these will only cost you twenty tickets!

There are local musicians, beer trucks, bratwurst and gambling. The air smells of cotton candy, bug spray and sweat. Mmm.

And, when it gets late in the evening, there are teens and preteens running about. Well, they’re mostly just standing in large packs and their hormones are doing all the running.

As much as it pains me to say this, my daughter is a preteen now. I keep telling her to stop growing up, but she won’t listen to me. Typical.

My daughter is such a good kid, and is so studious and smart, that yesterday, I heard my husband tell her to, “Put down your book and play Mario with me!” but, she is still a girl. I know for a fact that she has a crush on Taylor Lautner. I totally caught her watching The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl the other night.

Given these facts, I don’t think I was out of line when I questioned her the other night about her intentions when we visit these festivals. I sat her down and asked, “So, are you going to be walking around in clumps of giggling girls this year? Are you going to be following the boys wherever they go?”

She replied, “Why would I do that? If you follow the boys around you just get less time on the rides.”

See? I told you she was smart.

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My daughter turned eleven in December. A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of cleaning her room, she told me that she had a bundle of clothes to hand down to her cousin. Then, as if she was uttering something completely meaningless she said, “Oh, and I don’t really play with my Barbies anymore.” Like a knife to the heart, I tell you.

For as long as I can remember, she has had a large, Barbie storage bag hanging in her room. Nearly the length of the door on which it hangs, it has individual compartments for putting dolls or clothes. It is so full and heavy that I have had to replace the hooks for it twice.

Under her bed there is an entire box full of wedding dresses, night-club outfits, tea-party skirts and mismatched flip-flops. There is a school teacher’s chalkboard, a purple convertible and a red, VW Beetle. Not to mention the full Cinderella carriage, complete with horses. All of it, done for.

My daughter is moving on. We have gone from baby dolls to shopping malls. Now she wants her own e-mail account and a cell phone. She was thrilled when I recently bought her a full-length mirror for her room so she can make sure she looks okay before school.

She brushes her hair without being asked (most of the time) and she’s wearing deodorant. Sometimes we pass right by the kid’s shoe section and head straight for the women’s, because she can fit in those now too.

She is growing up. And, that? Scares me to death.

Getting her through childhood was hard enough. Soon there will be peer pressure and boys and really important decisions with which she’ll be faced. Hard decisions that need to be made in an instant and need to be made correctly the first time, because sometimes there isn’t a second chance.

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching her grow and excel and morph into this amazing person.

But, I would do just about anything to go back in time to see her playing with those Barbies again.

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Next week, my daughter will mark her 11th birthday. We were discussing this momentous occasion when she suddenly said, “I remember being so scared about turning 10 last year!”

I replied, “Really? Why?”

“Because I knew I’d be in double digits for the rest of my life!”

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