Over the past two years, several of Molly’s friends had their ears pierced. Not wanting to be left out, Molly asked if she could have hers pierced, too. I told her that it was fine with me, even though it wasn’t exactly true. I told her because I knew what her next question would be and I knew what response would follow.
“Will it hurt?”
“Yep, it will, my sweet baby girl. I’m not gonna lie to you. It will hurt when they do it and they will be sore for a few days after that.”
“Okay, never mind then.”
See, I knew she was a chicken apprehensive. She doesn’t like pain. Who does? So I figured I had years before she summoned the courage to actually go through with it. And my plan worked pretty well.
Periodically, Molly would revisit the ear piercing question, get the same responses from me and then decides against it. Genius. My plan was genius. I was the mom who would let her kid pierce her ears and my daughter was the chicken apprehensive child who couldn’t go through with it.
Until now.
Molly stayed home from school last Friday. She had a slight temperature and a wicked cough. While we were snuggled in bed, she was played with my earrings and guess what she asked. You got it—the ear piercing question. I gave her the it will hurt speech,again, but this time she said, “I’m okay with that.”
Ummm, hadn’t thought about what I’d do if she actually got brave enough to call my bluff. Gosh. Hmmm. I stammered and stuttered and then said, “ Uh, okay, we’ll do it later.”
Yep, that was my strategy—stall, and hope that she would forget. Pathetic, I know.
Well, Molly was persistent so I had to buck up and finally make a real decision about the issue.
I truly didn’t care about her having her ears pierced. She’s a girl. It’s a right of passage. It’s gonna happen sooner or later. I didn’t care about the age thing either. There are PLENTY of things for which I make her wait until she is older. I didn’t even care about the pain thing, other than I never like seeing my child hurt.
What bothered me was that someone was going to poke holes into my child’s perfect little ears and they would be forever altered. Gulp. Those perfect little ears would never, ever be the same. For all eternity. I loved those perfect little ears that God made and I felt so guilty altering that perfection.
After a little thought, I realized that I would feel this way if she got her ears pierced at 5 or 25. I would have to suck it up and deal with it. So I told Molly, “Let’s call Dad and make sure it’s okay with him.” (And maybe, just maybe he’ll say no and I can delay the poking a hole in my perfectly made kid thing a bit longer!)
I called Tony at work with this life altering question. And like all men who are completely clueless about anything to do with womanly things like this, imparted these words of wisdom: “Uuuuuh, yeah, whatever you think.”
So, off to the mall we went.
Molly stepped inside the store, looked at the earrings, picked out the ones she wanted and then said, “I think I’ll wait a year or two.” Alrighty then.
We left the store walked through the mall, got to the exit and she changed her mind. Again. “Mom, I really want my ears pierced today.” Back through the mall, back to the store and onto the piercing chair she went.
This time she was as brave as could be. Didn’t even need me to hold her hand.
She sat with a smile as the girls worked on her ears.
She didn’t flinch as the earrings went in.
Then a delayed reaction. When they stepped back to take a look at Molly’s ears, she began to cry. It hurt. Just like I said it would.
By the time she got home, she was her old self. And she was ready to share the news with her best friend Mia, who by no coincidence, has the exact same earrings.
The girls exchanged war stories and chatted about other important almost-five-year-old things. Molly felt so grown up. And you know what? She is. Sniff, sniff.
And here’s a little close up of the permanently altered perfect little ears….
1 comment:
"Uhhh, yeah, whatever you think." Classic dad line. Sigh.
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