Pierced at Last

Well that title is going to get quite a few weirdos from Google.....

And to add to that thought-- googling "piercing in Las Vegas" is also not a great idea if you're trying to find the local Claire's.  The 20 tattoo parlors that came up were not exactly where I wanted to go.

My beautiful, wonderful, girly girl daughter turns 7 this week.  More than anything in the world-- anything-- she wanted her ears pierced.  She is apparently the only human being on the planet without pierced ears.

Well, except for her 42 year old mother.

Yep, you heard that right.  I don't have pierced ears.  Sorta.

I have semi-virgin lobes.  They were pierced once, in 1982.  They were uneven (because I jumped) and I had a terrible reaction to the posts.  I pulled them out after a few days of sore, puffy, gooey, nasty ears. 

My apologies if you were eating while you're reading this.

The reason I did not have pierced ears is because my very Catholic mother had been taught that it was desecration of the body and would prevent me from being buried in a Catholic cemetery (how nice is that?  How many mothers are concerned about their children's death rites... yep, freaked me out, too).  Oh, and sluts pierced their ears.  I didn't know what that meant but I did know that a) I was not a slut, whatever that was and b) If I died, I was okay to have eternal slumber in a Catholic cemetery and not forced to decompose with Protestants.  But at 12 I wanted to be like the other slutty, Protestant girls.  My mother was assured by aunt that ear piercing was cool with the church.  My mom caved.  Both my sister and I went.

And for me, with short hair, braces, glasses and a fairly skinny face, the last thing I needed was more metal drawing out my dorkiness.  And then they were crooked.  And then I was allergic to the hypo-allergenic posts.  Because 1% are and I am ALWAYS the 1%-- just not in the Republican way.

So I have reclaimed virgin earlobes.  Like dry humping gone awry.


ANYHOW....

I wasn't one of those moms who pierced the baby ears because honestly, I think it's weird.  There were enough things to keep clean during the infant years-- myself included-- that I didn't want to deal with earrings.  I also think baby jewelry is odd.  Babies are cute- they don't need adorned.  Weird.  Very weird to me.  Little necklaces.  Little rings.  Weird. Weird. Weird.

Also, when I lived in Ecuador, it was the custom to pierce the infant girls' ears.  And by the time the women were 40, their lobes were droopy.  It freaked me out.

So no baby earrings for my girl.

But Zoey's first word was shoe.  Actually, it was shoesie.

I birthed a girly girl.

I knew one day she would want pierced ears.  When was the question.

I thought rather than wait for some arbitrary age, I would base it on a skill- when she could keep track of her jewelry and hair accessories.  Once she could stop leaving them all over the house and losing them, then she could get her ears pierced.  Great idea, huh?

Except for one small detail...

that is never, ever going to happen in the next 10 years.  After a year of using that as the standard, I realized that could be well into her 20's. 

This week was her birthday.  I knew I was going to do this for her.  We are going out for her birthday (thank you, Ellen!) and I didn't want them to hurt when we were out.  So we did it tonight.

And I thought what the heck?  Why don't I give it another go round?

I'm not really too concerned about the burial thing (heck, my mom even changed her will to cremation-- these times, they are a changin') and the slut thing... well... no comment.

Talk about a bonding moment.  My daughter was SOOOOO excited she forgot to pee.  Then she started the pee pee dance.  She has issues with this.  She is 100 times better than before, but even now when she says she has to pee- she means 10 seconds ago.  We're usually proactive but with the excitement of having someone shoot a gun and permanently alter you earlobe looming, she sorta, kinda forgot.  I finally was sitting on the chair ready to go and well, she had to go, too. 

Off we went to Micheal's to pee.  She was skipping and dancing the whole time.  I was thinking "Why on earth am I doing this at 42?  Oh... to bond with my dancing, happy daughter."

We got back to Claire's, the little girl in front of us who is also 7 pointed out that yes, it did hurt.  Great.  I went first. 

The piercing technician- she was a pro-- took her time to adjust the holes.  I even asked her to change one.  She did-- no uneven holes for me, thank you!  Then she did it.   My reclaimed virginity soiled for eternity.  Again.  And it stung like a mother.

I have to say, however, it looks fabulous!  The piercing technician and I discussed my prior issues, so we went with gold posts.  They are special diamonds from Zircon  ( hee hee), too.  I'm hoping there are no oozing holes tomorrow.

Then it was my daughter's turn.  She was no longer dancing.  She was a hoot when I was in the hot seat.  She was chicken little when it was her turn.  She put it off then she decided to just go for it.

She was a champ-- a little watery eyes, but overall, no official tears.  Because it didn't hurt.  She said "Skip has pinched me harder than that!"  Great.  Good to know.

Here we are-- all pierced and ready to face the world with our fabulousness!!

I always say I am a better person for having had children. I am, without a doubt, a better woman for having a daughter.  She is as strong as she is beautiful  She got me to do something I never would have done without her.  She makes me more feminine.  She is proud to be a girl-- something I often lose sight of in my male dominated profession. 

She is everything I want to be when I grow up.