I got my period really young (right after my eleventh birthday) and I also hit 5’5’’ in fifth grade. 'Course, still haven’t developed a figure or filled out yet. . .
Hey, Bucky, what happened to that “bear” you grew? Did you finally turn him loose into the woods? 
In A Child’s Garden of Misinformation, Art Linkletter noted one kid’s appraisal of human life:
“The four stages of life afre infancy, childhood, adolescence and obsolescence.”
I got my first period when I was 11. I think I’d already gotten my first bra by then, too, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t NEED one till I was 12 or 13.
My daughter’s 11, and her hips and breasts are developing. Although she hasn’t started her period, over the summer I’ve also noticed that she’s had some definite signs of PMS and they’ve been occurring at regular intervals about a month apart.
Now I have to go breathe into a paper bag until I don’t feel dizzy anymore. Please excuse me.
I got breasts at 10 or so, and underarm hair by 11. But I didn’t have a period until I was 16. I thought I was a freak.
Oh yeah, I am.
Talking about reviving some old threads.
I started wearing a bra when I was ten, although I should have started at least a year earlier. I was a “C” cup by the time I was 11, a “D” cup by the time I was 13. I started my period just after my 11th birthday, but I remember only having two periods in a row and then not having another one for over a year. I had just moved to the area and didn’t know anybody when I was 10. The girls hated me for already having boobs, and the guys just wanted to touch them. It was high school before I finally made any friends, even though I still was bigger breasted than most of the girls (I was a DD by high school).
I haven’t had time to check out the thread on GD, so I don’t know what’s over there. But I read an article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back about this very subject. It talked about how pediatricians are seeing more and more kids recently in full-blown puberty at ages as early as 8 and 9. The causes are unknown. They could be anything from trace amounts of hormones in food, to dietary changes from one generation to the next, to several other things. No direct link has been found to any one cause.
The article said that in past years doctors usually just let these things run their course. However as it is becoming more frequent and occurring at younger ages, the doctors are starting to intervene by prescribing hormones that halt the puberty process. They have the kids take the hormones for a couple years, and then when the kids are taken off the hormones they resume their normal development from that point on with no ill effects.
That’s all I remember about the article. I don’t know if it said anything about the average age of puberty decreasing. But it said that there has been a definite increase in individual kids going into puberty at ridiculously young ages.
Late. I didn’t have a period until I was 14 and not another one until they discovered I had a hormone imbalance at almost 16. (Granted, I did have pubic hair and wore a small B-cup) I was also 5’9 and weighed 101 lbs. Teachers used to call my mother and express their concerns of anorexia.
Once the doctor put me on high estrogen birth control pills, I gained 30lbs in about 2 months, my breasts ballooned to a DD-cup, I got really curvy and had a period every month like clockwork.
Still have the problem too, though not as severe. If I go off the pill, I usually drop about 15 lbs and my periods become really irregular.
My little sister is starting to get breasts now. She’s 9.
Period-- 9. C-cup–11.
Daughter got hers early 10.
One day I looked at my son coming out of the bathroom and realized he could no longer go around the house naked. I mean instantaneous, very large (his daddy is so proud!) thing. Made all the more, shall we say, unproportioned by the fact that it was surrounded by this scrawny little 11 year old body.
He’s 13 now, 4’11" and wears size 11 shoe! I just hope he grows taller instead of longer!