Milestone in the life of O

My little girl made her first official "big girl" decision this past weekend.

She decided she wanted to get her ears pierced.

Who planted this seed of piercing desire? Well, that would be her Nana, of course. Nana, who is my grandmother, has told O since she was about 3 years old that when she got her ears pierced, Nana would give her a pair of diamond earrings. This meant nothing to O. In fact, after a lot of asking from Nana, and once she realized piercing meant putting holes in your ears, she decided that she would be five before any piercings would occur. To a three year old, five seems awfully far away. On her 5th birthday, Nana asked her again when she was getting her ears pierced and O replied that she would need to be 6 before going forward with this idea of sticking something sharp in her skin.

As parents, we didn't really have an issue with it. I know that sometimes people want their daughters to be 12 or 13. Some people disagree withdoing it at all. All we wanted was for her to actually want to do it, so we didn't feel like we were torturing her. And so, one day soon after she hit the big FIVE, she decided it was time. Waiting another year until she turned six was just out of the question.

So, while the boys were at a football game last Saturday, I took O and K to the mall for a trip to Claire's and a pretzel. In anticipation of this grand event, O had decked herself out in every single solitary item of costume jewelry she owned. She drew quite a bit of attention parading through the mall like a star going to the Oscars. Gaudy does not even begin to describe how she looked.

She climbed up in the chair, chose her earrings (pink crystal flowers, of course), held my hands and closed her eyes. All the while I kept asking her, "Are you sure you want to do this? You don't have to do this. Are you sure you want to do this?"

KACHUNK KACHUNK is the next thing I heard followed by,

"MOMMY! OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And then, as quickly as the tears began, they stopped. It was off to get a pretzel, but not before paying $38.00 to the cashier. Since when did ear piercing get so expensive? I distinctly remember my mom paying $5.00 back in 1978 when I got my ears pierced.

Now my girly girl has sparkly ears and she's just so very excited.

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