A childhood belief about periods

After the horrifying conversation and book-readings that explained getting your period, I became paranoid until I started at age 12. When I started, I was staying with my father for the weekend, and had to call my mom on the phone to tell her. She then instructed my father to go buy me some pads. Dad, not knowing any better, bought pantyliners (those lil' flimsy things), which did okay on the first occasion, as I didn't bleed much. Problem was, pads and tampons had been explained to me, but nobody had explained that you could STOP using them after you were done for the months. So I wore the stupid pantyliners for a month solid! I then informed my mother that I needed more. At which point, she told me that I didn't need to wear them for eternity, just when I needed them. (Big Relief!) However, having only seen the panyliners (mom used tampons, no pads), I was HORRIFIED when she bought me the real deal pads and they were, naturally, much larger.