In the grand scheme of my children’s milestones, I expected to get choked up about first words, first steps, first and last days of school, graduations and the like. But ear piercing? Nope, I never expected my kids getting their ears pierced to be any big thing.
Well, this weekend my 7-year-old daughter got her ears pierced. No big deal, right? Then why does it feel like such an enormous deal to me?
Because it TOTALLY is.
You see, unlike many Latina moms, I had no intention of piercing either of my daughters’ ears when they were babies. Lots of Latina babies get their ears pierced as babies, but that’s just not my thing. I mean why? I didn’t care if people didn’t know whether they were boys or girls and it’s not like earrings were going to make them any more beautiful to me, so it would have never occurred to me to get their ears pierced.
I knew the whole ear-piercing choice would come at some point and my husband and I decided that when they got older if they wanted to get their ears pierced and were willing to put up with the temporary pain of the procedure, then we would let them.
My eldest who is almost 10 isn’t at all interested, but my youngest has been bringing it up for a couple of years. But the idea of the pain has always kept her from doing it. Until the other day.
We were at the mall getting my husband’s phone repaired. During the wait, my husband noticed and pointed out a store that offers ear piercing. My baby girl was all “should I?” Again, we told her that she totally could. She kept thinking about it and thinking about it.
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Now, you should know that my darling girl is rather terrified of anything that resembles a needle and even the thought of pain makes her start tearing up. I for sure thought she would talk herself out of it.
I was wrong.
After hemming and hawing for a few minutes, she stood up, slapped her thighs and announced, “I’m doing it.” As determined as she looked, I still wasn’t convinced she would do it.
We all walked over to the store with her, helped her pick out her starter earrings and let her know it still wasn’t too late to change her mind. Anticipatory tears were rolling down her cheeks, but she didn’t change her mind.
When the first earring went in, she yelped and started crying in earnest. She looked genuinely scared, but she stayed still while the second one went in. When it was done, her tiny little earlobes looked swollen and she kept crying as she picked out a second pair of earrings in the shape of tiny unicorns.
She got her ears pierced!
My baby girl got her ears pierced and it may not seem like a big deal to you, but to her, her older sister, her father and me, it is a VERY big deal because we know how hard of a decision this was for her to make.
She conquered a fear. She did something she really wanted to do even though she was terrified. She put up with the pain. She wasn’t ashamed to cry in public.
In the end, she walked out of that store in the mall just a little bit taller, a little bit wiser and a lot more courageous.
That night, right before going to bed, she said to me, “I’m so proud of myself.” I told her she should be.
When other people look at her earrings, they’ll just see cheap little earrings. When I look at her earrings, I will always see precious milestones. I don’t even like earrings all that much, but I love hers SO MUCH.
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