Yes, those are earrings!

My sweet girl decided about a month ago that she needed some earrings. We had been playing at the mall playground and there was a pair of sweet little twin girls there in fancy dresses and earrings! Lillian saw them and just had to have some of her own. For some reason, she told Andy about her pierced ear dreams first.

At bedtime that night, Andy said, “Lillian wants to have her ears pierced.” I looked at Lillian and said, “Do you?” She said, “YES!”

I immediately launched into a description of exactly what it means to get your ears pierced, the brief but certain pain… the weeks and weeks of ear care solution… the care you must forever take to ensure that you don’t rip your earrings out whenever you do anything, etc., etc. Lillian thought it over for a minute and then said, “Maybe I’ll wait until I’m a bigger girl.”

Andy looked at me in disgust and said, “Why are you talking her out of it?”

I just wanted her to be prepared. I didn’t want her to naively go in thinking this was going to involve no pain and no upkeep. “I’m just being honest about what it’s like.” I said.

I asked Lillian to think about it and let me know when she was ready to get her ears pierced.

The next morning, very shortly after waking up, she said, “I’m ready to be a big girl now and get earrings!”

So, off to the mall we went! Lillian had great fun picking out her earrings, a pair of pink flowers with a white diamond center. I had a LOT of paperwork (I don’t remember that!?!?) to fill out and then we were ready to roll! Here is a picture of Lillian getting her ears cleaned and marked for piercing:
Just after that picture was taken, all hell broke loose! Oh, the pain and agony! I immediately felt guilty to giving in to Andy – and Lillian. And more than that, I wished HE was here to torture a sweet girl, not me. NOT ME, who didn’t want to let her do it yet in the first place!!!

Lillian got over the pain of that first piercing, but the thought of the second ear was too much. She refused. I tried to tell her that she would be so happy once it was done. Just think of all the pretty earrings you could wear. Just look at all the pretty things in this store that you could buy! But no luck. The piercing lady even tried to bribe her with a lollipop. She ate it, but still we only had one earring. I told her that she couldn’t just have one earring! How silly would that look?

We decided to take a break from the evil piercing chair and walk around the store a bit. I showed her various earrings with unicorns and butterflies and lady bugs and stars and hearts… It wasn’t working.

About this time another woman entered the store with a girl about 18 months old. They were there to get her ears pierced. We chatted with them for a bit. The woman tried, in vain, to help me convince Lillian that you really should have TWO earrings. Then she said, “Well, is it ok if we go now, while you are thinking about it?” I said sure. Then I realized that having Lillian there to watch this poor, even littler girl scream, was NOT a good idea. After witnessing that she surely would have one earring forever.

“We’ll be back!” I said, and we headed about two stores down the mall to Payless Shoes. I left Gran Debbie and Clayton there, just trying to get the heck out of there as fast as possible! Then I realized that was a great thing. I called Gran Debbie on her cell phone and asked her to call me back when the other girl was done and gone. Lillian and I looked at the most sparkley shoes you’ve ever seen. We tried on shoe after shoe after shoe… by this time she was really calming down (trying on shoes is one of her absolute favorite things to do!). When she found a pair of especially sassy, black, shimmering slip ons with little platform heels, I said, “Do you want those?” Of course she said yes! And I said, “If you get your other ear pierced, you can have them.” Yes, the ultimate bribe.

Gran Debbie called and we headed back down to the torture chamber. I though she was going to go through with it, but no. As soon as we sat back down in the chair, Lillian sitting on my lap, she was freaking out again. I tried to reason with her, I tried to calm her, I reminded her of the pretty shoes waiting for her after this was doene, I tried everything I could think of!

In the end, I told her that the lady just needed to check to make sure the pen mark was still in the right place. I lied to my girl and told her we were NOT going to pierce her ear, just check it out. I held on to her little head as tight as I could and mouthed to the lady, “DO IT! DO IT! DO IT!”

Then it was done. I told her to scream as loud as she could. And boy did she! The two young guys at the Verizon station out in the mall looked at us as if we were abusing Lillian.

I felt like I WAS abusing her. I’ve never felt so bad in my life. I lied to her. I held her down and tortured her! How could I possibly do that to my sweet little girl?

Why did I do it? Would it really be so bad if she walked around for the next few years with one earring? Or if we just took the one out?

I was thinking what a lot of moms think in this situation: What will people think if my girl only has one earring? And how much are these people going to charge me for one – or no – earrings or for just destroying one of their fancy sterilized sets?

Who cares? Does it really matter? Is it worth all this torture and guilt???

But, in the end, 10 minutes later, she was fine. She said, “You were right, mom, it didn’t hurt for very long!”

I called Andy and I think I said something like, “If we ever do this again, YOU are taking her!!! And Lillian wants to talk to you.”

And now she loves them. She takes such good care of them and I guess it was worth the torture. If she learned a lesson in all of this, maybe she learned that sometimes you have to put up with a little pain or effort to get what you want in life. Or, she learned that sometimes even mama lies.