A Piercing Question.....

I love the look of little girls with pierced ears. When I was a kid I had a friend from a large Italian family and all the new babies had little gold posts or tiny thin hoops in their ears. I thought it was adorable! I wanted to get Teena's ears pierced right away when she was a baby but I let people talk me out of it. So many people suggested that I wait until she was older, to make a glorious day of mother-daughter fun out of it. To make it a rite of passage, or to mark a significant event with it. It should be special, people said, an occasion. The Husband is good in these area's, he will give an opinion but recognizes he has no experience being a girl. However he did not like the idea. So, I left it be.

I let people talk me out of it and I then spent the next four years wishing I had not. Ugh. Since when do I let people talk me out of stuff like that anyway? When Teena decided she was ready to talk I started asking her opinion on earrings. Are you sure you don't want pierced ears? How about now? And now? What do you think about pierced ears hmmm? Teena tried to redirect or ignore me but finally gave in last fall. I promptly paraded her to the mall and happily dragged her to the Claire's.

FYI and BTW, there is nothing special or passage- like about hanging off a bar chair with your butt halfway in the mall from the doorway of the Claire's. Nothing. I signed 400 pages of documents, they shot Teena with the snappers, she looked really startled and turned red and then we were done.

Genea had already- pierced ears when she moved in. Unfortunately, at some point one of the earrings fell out and the hole closed up within a few days without my even realizing we had a problem. I gave her the choice to get the ear re-done or let the other one close up and she made the only sensible decision for a 4 year old- close 'em up! Really, her behavior at that time was so wild and out of control and violent that earrings were probably not a good idea anyway. So I only started nagging her about a year ago. Are you ready yet? How about now? I thought Teena getting hers done might prompt Genea to do it too, but no- go. She was afraid of the pain.

Who knows what goes on in the mysterious mind of Genea. Late last week she woke up and informed us she wanted to get her ears pierced. YAY! I gave it a few days and off we went. I filled out the 400 forms to verify I am Genea's mom, her parent and not her guardian, official and legal- like. The piercer noticed the marks from the old holes and asked about using the same spots, which I thought would be fine, there hadn't been any issues there. Then she asked when had I had the original piercing done? And I went..... ummm..... Hmmmm. I don't know when they were done.

Woosh! Just like that, Genea became The Adopted Child! About 20 different thoughts were jumping around my brain. Should I tell them? Should I not tell them? It's not their business. I don't know when she had them done because I was not there for the first 4 years of her life. They don't need to know that. I can't just leave it though. A mom knows when her child's ears were pierced. They will think I am not her mom and refuse to do the piercing. How could I not know? I have to tell them something. I looked over at the piercer who was busy sanitizing something and I realized she did not seem to care too much. I paused another moment. What should I say?

Nothing. In the end I said nothing. Which was appropriate. I answered the question and I had nothing to hide. An explanation might have been nice but, meh, too bad.

They pierced her ears anyway and did not ask for clarification.

Here is the "before" picture of Genea. They leave this cute little teddy bear on the chair for kids to hold on to. The teddy bear has about 12 piercings in her ears. Hootchie teddy bear. This is Genea smiling just before the action.

Ummm, there is no "after" picture. Despite all of our warnings that this was going to hurt, Genea was still surprised at the level of pain. Many, many shoppers in the mall that day were also surprised at the volume one medium sized child could emit shrieking in pain. I didn't explain anything to them either.