Pierced Ears with Grandma

The Banana has been waiting a decade for pierced ears. When she was a tiny little girl, Grandma Kathy suggested that she could come to celebrate The Banana’s thirteenth birthday and they would get her ears pierced. The Banana has been highly anticipating her thirteenth birthday ever since. A few months ago YaYa asked if The Banana would like to get their ears pierced together on her birthday, so they worked out a plan.

Because The Banana was still playing on her soccer team on her birthday (until late in the day when she broke her ankle!) it was determined that Grandma would make the journey for the birthday celebration a few weeks late so that soccer would be done before the earrings went in. It is against the rules to play soccer with earrings in, and of course, you can’t remove the earrings when they are freshly pierced. Last weekend grandma arrived!

The plan was also for the three of them to go and do the deed on their own, but it turned out that they needed my signature on a form to proceed, which meant I got to be present for the deliberation concerning which earrings would be used for the piercing. It also meant that I got to have a lot of fun making statements like:

“You know, there is still time to change your mind.”

“You don’t actually have to go through this if you don’t want to.”

“Are you really sure you want to go through with this?”

Then I would laugh an evil laugh. Numerous times they told me to take a little walk around the mall and come back while they waited for their turn.

It was a long wait for their turn. For some reason the piercing kiosk in the mall was incredibly busy on a Friday evening (who knew?). While they waited, they got to see a few other people have their ears pierced. The girls looked a little worried, but they remained stalwart and determined to do the deed.

The second the forms were signed I was directed to leave for the bookstore. (Even Grandma shooed me along my way). I wasn’t present for the poke, but I did call out as I left for the bookstore, “I’ll listen for the screaming!”

They came home with cute little earrings in their ears. YaYa has sophisticated silver dots. The Banana has small gold dolphins. They actually arrived home earlier than I (the boys and I got caught up in the bookstore), and so much nervous energy was expounded that The Banana was ready for some special scrambled eggs cooked by Grandma, and some chill-out time on the couch.