Trauma or Drama?

Remember about two weeks ago, when my daughter S got her ears pierced for her eighth birthday? Well, after roughly six long weeks of cleaning her ears twice a day and spinning the little gold balls as often as she would let me, the day had come to take out her earrings for the first time. S was very excited to see how her ears had turned out and also to change her earrings. She had received a few pairs of earrings for her birthday, and she was eager to update her look after weeks of the same old gold balls, day in and day out. I too was excited, but it quickly wore off after the ordeal I endured that very afternoon.

S decided she wanted to change her earrings on a Sunday morning. She shared her intentions with me about ten minutes before we had to leave for Hebrew school, which would make any other mom with a back bone say no. Since I am an invertebrate, I attempted to make her fantasy a reality.

We stood next to each other in front of the mirror in my bathroom, armed with some cotton balls and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I pinched one gold ball between the fingernails of my right hand and reached around her ear with my left.

She grabbed that arm firmly and said, “Let’s do this after Sunday school instead,” her eyes wide with fear.

“You got it!” I chirped, removing my pincers from her ear lobe.

When she came home from her morning activities, she forgot all about the earring changing. We busied ourselves with lunch and last minute homework before sneaking upstairs to watch a movie on the big screen. After she watched the movie and I had a delicious nap (nothing lulls me to sleep faster than a Disney musical), I went to my bathroom. S shadowed me there and sat patiently on the edge of the tub while I finished and washed my hands. And it was just pee, for your information.

“Hey,” I said. “Why don’t we change out your earrings now?”

S stood up quickly. “No, I don’t think so,” she said politely, as if I offered her hot tea. “I think we should wait another two weeks.”

“No, we really ought to do it now. We need to see how they turned out, see if they are lopsided or crooked.”

“Could they be, really?” Eight year olds are so gullible.

“Nah, sweetie, I’m just messing with you. But we should see if they are infected. I’ll put the same ones back in if you like. We don’t have to change your earrings today, just take them out and give them a good cleaning.”

“I don’t want to,” she said. Me neither, I thought.

“Come on, S, let’s get it over with. Then we can make sure they are healing okay, that they aren’t infected.”

“I don’t want to,” she said again.

“Look, S,” I tried to maintain my patience. “I really think we need to clean them. What if your ear is about to fall off?”

Her hands shot up to the sides of her head. “No.”

I don’t know why I engage in a battle of wills with S. You would think I would have learned by now that is S doesn’t want to do something, she isn’t going to, not without a fight. And I’m not talking about a little spat. I am talking Sparta versus Xerxes’ army battle. Which, oddly enough, I am never quite in good enough shape for.

“Get over here and let’s do this. One,” I counted.

“No!” S said.

“Two.”

“No!”

“Three,” I said. Now, get over here.”

S started to cry. She slowly walked over to me, trying to keep her ears covered. I moved her hand away from her right ear and got a good grip on both the gold ball in the front and the earring back and pulled as gently as I could, given my unexpressed rage. But it didn’t matter; she still howled as if I had ripped off her ear, which I was tempted to do. Her earring popped right out, and immediately blood began trickling out of the hole. S saw me dab at her precious body fluid and freaked out.

“Owww!” she screamed. “It’s bleeding.”

“Stop it!” I yelled back. “I have to clean it. Stay still!”

I tried to hold her arm down so I could swab up the blood. I peered at her new ear hole, which looked like it had something stuck in it. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a hair. One of her thin, blond, long head hairs had wormed its way through her fresh piercing. I pulled on it, but it wouldn't give. Then I tugged on it until finally it came free, pulling a thick string of pus with it.

“See?” I said, throwing the putrid hair in the sink. “It was infected!” I was tempted to gloat, but I quickly remembered what I was gloating about.

S just cried harder. I squeezed her earlobe and more pus oozed out the back. I took out the hydrogen peroxide and dabbed at it some more. I squeezed and dabbed and squeezed and dabbed until only blood came out. I wiped off the stem of the gold ball and quickly shoved it back in the ear hole before she could block my hand. More blood seeped out.

About this time, my husband joined us to inquire about all the ruckus. S and I were yelling back and forth, me trying to convince her we had to clean the other ear and her voicing her dissent. Seeing us with our lids flipped made him flip his lid too, and pretty soon we were all screaming at each other.

“You’re the one who wanted to get your ears pierced!” I screamed at S. “Now stay still and let me clean your hole!”

My husband stood behind her and pressed her arms to her sides, much like he does to the cat when it’s claw-trimming time. S tried to struggle but I quickly got that earring out. At least the right side wasn’t infected. She screeched at the top of her bronchial tubes, crying uncontrollably, “Don’t put it back in! Dooonnn’t!!”

“If I don’t, that hole will close up, and I am not about to take you back to get them re-pierced. So stay still or this will only hurt worse.”

We fought, me trying to stick her earring though the pierced hole, her turning her head so I missed. Finally, I triumphed. My husband released her and she fled the room, hysterically sobbing and hyperventilating.

I did leave out parts of the story. Like the part where she screamed in my face. And the part when my husband screamed in her face. And the part where I screamed in her sister’s face when she burst in the bathroom and screamed in mine about what was going on. The part where I am sure the neighbor’s heard all the yelling. And the part where we all piled in the car afterwards and drove to my in-law’s house, where we proceeded to act as if nothing traumatic happened.

And traumatic it was. Not foot binding or genital mutilation traumatic. But bad enough that S swore she would never get anything pierced again. Which is fine by me. I prefer her eyebrows, nostrils, nipples, navel, and labia remain unscathed and unpunctured for the rest of her life.

Two days later, she asked me if I would put in her new blue earrings. I did.

“Well, that was easy,” she announced, skipping out of the room.

Was it, really?