Right of Passage

For about a year now I have invested quite a few dollars at Claire's, a little costume jewelry place in the mall, for M some clip-on earrings. Each time we buy a pair, she loses at least one of them within just a few days.

I have been trying to persuade her into going ahead and getting her ears pierced so that we wouldn't have to have all this wasted money all of the time. She desperately wanted to have pierced ears, but just wasn't willing to actually GET them pierced. She even called herself a "fraidy-cat" once, so I knew it was just fear holding her back. Some may think I'm weird, or totally wrong here, but I pushed her to having it done, only because I knew she wanted it but was too scared. I talked with her about it for a couple of hours Saturday morning, trying to make it sound great, fun, and telling her it wouldn't hurt...but NO, she didn't budge on the subject. Finally, I just got ready, took her to the mall and took her into Claires to look at the earring studs. She found some she liked and I said, "lets do it now." She, once again, hesitated...BUT this time she actually thought about it. The girl there said we could do both ears at the same time once the other worker got back from her break. That gave us about 15 minutes to walk around the mall and let M think on it. In that 15 minutes, she started to get excited and was ready. So, we all headed back to Claires (the whole family in tow) and watched M get her ears pierced without a hitch. There were a few tears welling up in her eyes, but it was a little the sting and mostly the joy in the fact that "I did it and it really wasn't that bad." T and I both welled up with tears ourselves even.

I don't know...something about it...a right of passage, my little girl growing bigger..I'm not really sure, but funny enough, it was emotional for me. I probably need to start preparing myself NOW for her high school graduation in 9 years. I will be a basket case, for sure.

M is completely overjoyed with her new little, diamond, flower studs in her ears. Her sister even said she looked "rich". M has told me a thousand times since Saturday that she is so glad I talked her into getting her ears pierced. She said that now she would trust me, but only "a little bit, ...because it did hurt a little."