Holey Ears

I've always told Sydney that when she was ready, she could get her ears pierced.  I figure there's no law or commandment saying when you can do it, so it's up to her, as long as I thought she was old enough to handle it.  For the longest time, it's freaked her out, so I didn't worry about it too much.  Then a few weeks ago, she and I had a little girls night out and were looking at earrings and she started to get the idea that she might be ready to get her ears pierced.  So we talked it over with Tim and convinced him it wasn't the end of the world, and she and I went on a Saturday morning to Claire's for the big event.

Here she is before the pain was inflicted--all smiles...

Now the lady is marking where to make the holes.  Notice she is still all smiles.  Little does she know...

 And here is right after the first one has been done.  I had assumed that surely there would be 2 employees at Claire's so that they could each do an ear at the same time before Syd realized how much it hurt.  Never assume...only the one lady on this particular Saturday morning...  Right about now she's starting to cry and telling me that she doesn't want to do the 2nd ear.  And I'm calmly reminding her that this was, after all, her idea, and besides, only having the one ear pierced will look quite silly.

 Look how pretty that sparkly purple earring is!  It would be a shame to not give it a match!  I love that you can see the little tears in this picture!  Get ready for #2, Syd!

 Even more close-up of her sad little tears.  But she's done!  She did it!  I really was quite surprised she went through with it.  She's been so scared to do it for so long...and even though there were a few tears, she really was quite brave and only whimpered a little bit.

 One sure way to get her to smile after inflicting that amount of pain is to give her a mirror and tell her how beautiful she is...she gets her vanity from me...  She's done really well taking care of her earrings and reminding me to put the solution on them day and night.  And we marked on the calendar when she will be able to take out the studs and put in something else...right around Halloween.