My mother was horrified. Her granddaughter still has no earrings?!

S

he wasn’t my first girl. But she was my first girl in Israel and my second girl after three boys. Two girls, ten years apart. The world was rejoicing with me.

When my firstborn daughter arrived, she was welcomed home from the hospital to my parents’ house, where an “earring lady” waited with a display case of close to a hundred adorable studs in every color, shape, and design. I carefully chose a pair of pink diamond hearts, and with two quick clicks of the earring gun, my baby was instantly and officially girlified.

Ten years later her younger sister was already ten days old and her ears were still… bare. Undressed. Empty.

My mother was horrified. Her granddaughter still has no earrings?! But no one in Israel did house calls.

So once I got the green light to go out, my visiting mother and I headed to the mall to get the job done.

It was a beautiful day. The sun spilled its golden breath across the world, and in its glow, my tiny pink bundle looked even pinker. Ahh. The joy of girls.