Lira has never been a daredevil. If I weren’t her mom I might call her a chicken—Bbrrk, brroock, broock, brk-ooock. So I was surprised on Saturday when she said to me, on the way back from a birthday party, “Mom, I want to get my ears pierced.”

Really??? Just the other day she told me (Taylor Swift-style) that she would “never ever ever—like ever” get her ears pierced.

“Are you feeling brave?” I asked. She nodded.

I decided to seize the moment. We were almost home when I turned the car around and drive to the mall. We tried calling and texting Dave on our way there. No answer. I made an executive decision: this was happening.

When we got to Pentagon City we headed straight to Icing, which is supposed to be a classier Claire’s. Lira picked out tiny green daisy studs and sat in the chair without an ounce of fear. “You scared?” I asked. She told me she wasn’t. “Just nervous,” she said.

The piercer distracted her with talk of princesses and, before we knew what happened, one ear was pierced… and then the other. Not a tear in sight! Who is this kid???

We walked (actually, she skipped) back to the car and tried calling Dave again to share the news. He congratulated her, told her he was proud of her and then asked to talk to me. Uh oh. He was not happy. He said “6 is too young! She’s growing up too fast! Why not let her be a kid for as long as possible?” But to me this isn’t a kid vs. grownup thing. This is about bravery. I was so proud of her. But more importantly, she was so proud of herself.

Lira shared her ear-piercing experience at show-and-tell, and came rushing home to give me a hug and tell me about it. But there was just one problem… one of her earrings was missing!

We rushed back to the mall, this time with Dave and Zana in tow. The hole was closed! Apparently, in the first 6 weeks, the hole closes as soon as the earring comes out. The only thing to do was re-pierce that ear. Time to test just how brave Lira really was.

Don’t worry, she did fine. The real spectacle was Zana sitting on Dave’s shoulders sobbing and drooling into his hair, then rubbing it in for good measure– all because she wanted her ears pierced too. Between Dave’s nervous sweat and Zana’s tears, we gave that place a bath.

 

By the way, if you notice in pictures that she’s wearing two different earrings, it’s because the store was out of the green daisies. So there’s a white one to in one ear and a green one in the other. We know better than to try to switch out the other earring to match.

How old were you when you got your/your daughter’s ears pierced? Was it an ordeal or no-big-deal?