A rite of passage

Once a year I take each child to get their pictures taken at Picture People. I've done this since they were little babies, and I may not always be prompt about getting their pics taken for each birthday, I haven't missed a year yet. While Lindsay and Cole were here, I needed to take Lindsay for her seven year old pics (before she turns 8 in September--see, not very prompt, but I made it before her birthday). While we were at the mall, I decided to surprise her with something she's been asking for: earrings.

My girls are funny because they have now each had their ears pierced twice. And for each one, the first time was exactly the same. They were both around six the first time, both cried (or in Lindsay's case, screamed) like crazy when they got it done. Then they let me care for their earrings for the six weeks you have to leave them in. As soon as the six weeks was up, I like to take their earrings out and give them a real thorough cleaning and then put them back in. For each girl, it was a hassle getting them to let me pull them out and then they refused to let me put them back in. And although they were both on the younger end of the spectrum of piercings, they were both begging for it (each had friends that had recently gotten their ears pierced). For Bailey, though, the second time she got hers pierced, it took and she's not had any problems with them. It remains to be seen if that's going to be the case with Lindsay, but so far I've not had any problems with her letting me clean them and she remembers more often than I do that they need to be cleaned, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

The other funny thing about my girls with their piercings is that, for as much of a camera bug as I am, I only had the camera on hand for one of their piercings each. So I have pics of Bailey's first time and Lindsay's second time. Kind of funny, I know, and Bailey's second time was Lindsay's first time, so I would have been able to capture both, but of course it didn't work out that way.

When we headed out to the mall, I didn't tell Lindsay that I was planning on letting her get them pierced again, but I figured her being home for the summer was a good time because she wouldn't have other distractions to keep us from forgetting to clean her ears. Of course I blew that now since she went back to Grandma's house, but I'm hoping she and Grandma remember to take care of them. So she and I went and shopped for a picture outfit before pictures and then got her pictures done. While we were waiting for the pictures to be ready for them to show us, I suggested we waste some time in Claire's (which, if you have a little girl, I know you know how hard that is to do :D). So we were wandering around Claire's for a bit, I kept waiting for her to bring up the subject again. And of course because I was waiting for it, she didn't ask. So finally I kind of drag her to the front area where they do the piercings and she lamented about not having pierced ears a little, so I took that and ran with it. She was so cute because she was so happy and excited. (On a side note, I always ask the kids if they have something they want to bring with their pics, and Lindsay chose her Bobby Jack which turned out to be a very good thing to have with her for this).
I wanted to make sure she was sufficiently warned, so I talked to her a little about how it was going to hurt but it would be ok. Well, this was definitely one time I should have kept my mouth shut. As she's watching the girl get ready, I lift up the camera to take a picture of her all excited and suddenly she's crying.

I guess I made her really nervous about it and the process of waiting was just too much. Luckily there was another employee around, so they did both her ears at the same time, but my poor little girl is not very tough.

She kept telling me how happy she was to have them pierced, though, so I didn't feel too bad. And now all she talks about is the earrings she wants to get when the six weeks is up (some bribery for her letting me do the thorough cleaning at six weeks--we don't go back to the store for earrings until she lets me put them back in). And now she can't wait for school to start so she can show off her new ears. You have to look close (maybe click the picture to get a bigger image), but check out her new sparkly ears.