(Elle - the birthday girl!)
Finally, after two years, Elle got her ears pierced. For two years, I've had to listen to the "...because it's gonna hurt" or the "...just do it next year" and it really started to get to me. Each time Elle walked away and backed out was just another invitation for disappointment and frustration. She would kick herself and tell herself that if she had just done it, it would be over with already. Smart kid.
This afternoon, Elle climbed into that chair, chose her earrings (called Pink Ice for the October birthstone), and immediately froze. I could see by the expression on her face that she had already mentally checked out. If I tried to talk to her she would roll her eyes in my general direction and stare right through me. It was freaky.
She woke up as soon as the first post was thrust into her earlobe. Aaaaaah....tears!! Shit!!! What do I do? What do I doooo? The last time I made her go through a procedure against her own will was when she was catheterized by a group of nurses and it took five of them just to pin her down! (Elle was three years old but she has the strength of a pissed-off pitbull terrier. And, apparently, the memory of an elephant. She still brings up that incident in the hospital.) So I regrouped and looked Elle straight in the eyes and said, "Well, now you have to do the other one or you'll just look ridiculous!"
She took a deep breath and kind of smarted off to me. "Fine! I just want to get this over with!" Yes, my threats of social awkwardness worked! Way to go, Mom. I patted myself on the back and admired my beautiful, evenly pierced daughter.
After that traumatic experience, I bought myself an iced hazelnut latte and told Elle about the time my parents tricked me into getting my ears pierced. I was five years old and hardly a girly girl. And I screamed. Man, did I scream! And my parents kept telling me that I looked like such a pretty little girl because of my new earrings and I wanted to punch them because I didn't want to be a pretty little girl!!
That's one of the differences between Elle and me. That she does want to be a pretty little girl. And she is. Oh, she is!
4 comments:
I got my ears pierced in 4th grade (despite the fact that I'm not a girly girl), and it was fine until one of them got terribly infected and I had to let the hole close in. When I got it re-pierced, I nearly blacked out from the pain, for some reason. Might have been some scar tissue or something. But I think I have a mild metal allergy, and I've never been able to wear earrings very long without them getting infected. So I just don't wear them. Though strangely my holes have never closed.
Oddly enough, I wear earrings now. It all started with a pair of dangly amber earrings I bought from a street vendor in Savannah for $6 about 2 years ago. I was able to open my holes after 20-something years.
yes, I have ears like Sra... and I have SO many pretties to wear!! I don't know why I buy them anyway, but I plan my poison and witch hazel the hell out of my ears and the earrings too, to minimize the damage.
I love earrings. They don't love me!
Hilarious, awkward and sweet, all rolled into one. Nice post.
Although the "pissed off pitbull" comment was particularly funny.
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