It is done.

The female half of our family now all have pierced ears. The frequency with which the girls ask me to take them to Claire's had increased tremendously over the past few months. I kept saying "Sure, you can get your ears pierced," and then something would come up, Saturdays would get busy, and we would all forget about it. Oh darn. Then the real catalyst. Sela's friend Jasmine invited her for a sleepover and asked the girls to dress-up like a famous person. Sela really wanted to be Taylor Swift, and earrings would be that one little detail to make everything perfect. Andrea, our babysitter, came over in the afternoon to do Sela's hair and make-up, which was so sweet of her and completely her own idea.



























And then it was off to Claire's, finally. They were excited/nervous. Everyone in Redmond was piercing their ears on Saturday, January 17th, so we waited almost 2 hours. A living hell for me might just be hanging out in a Claire's for two hours. It's crowded, tiny, and there are dozens of little pre-teens and teens in there that make me want to swish Sela and Nina right out and force them to stay and dress young forever. The serious amount of tacky stuff in that store had me running next door to Lucy ;), but the fact that my girls LOVED so much of it was even more unsettling. I felt panicky after awhile, like all my efforts at influencing their style were out the door in one afternoon. Nina walked up to some fishnet gloves and with a big smile on her face said, "Mom, this is TOTALLY my style." Oh great. Then Sela put on some gangster looking hat that I could tell she thought was cute, and I just thought to myself, oooooh boy. I bit my tongue, well, sort of.

And the worst part. Right when we walked in a 7 year old was getting her ears pierced. The girls' eyes were glued. Certainly they were hoping to feel more at ease after watching this little girl, but she went from smiles to shrieks in a matter of seconds. Serious crying, and not the happy cry. I thought, oh no, it's definitely not happening today. But Nina was determined, even more so than Sela.

When it was FINALLY our turn, Nina hopped right up in the chair. She was clearly excited. She held my hand, focused like a laser beam on some pink fuzzy, leopard-print, lacy, glittered slippers, and got those little ears pierced! Not a tear. She later told us she was meditating.

There are not enough mirrors in the store for this child. She was so happy and the little birthstone studs looked very sweet. I was relieved and so happy it wasn't painful for her.




















Then it was Sela's turn. I knew she was scared due to the spectacle she had witnessed earlier. I held her hand and in an instant it was done. But the look in her eyes was much different than Nina's. She, too, was relieved that it was over, but I could tell that it really hurt, even though there were no tears. A few 13 or 14 year old girls had gathered around to encourage her when they could tell she was hurting. They commented on how brave she was and how beautiful she looked. It was really so sweet. Fortunately, it doesn't hurt for too long and she was happy and smiling in no time. I tried a couple of times to get a good after-shot of Sela, but the earrings didn't show up too well. They're so tiny. And we were in a mad dash to stop by the chocolate shop for the chocolate they made me promise them if they were brave (do they know how to work it or what?!), and to get Sela to her party! But you can at least see how happy she was on Sunday when she wore a blue dress to match her sapphire colored earrings (please ignore the Christmas decorations in the background, we're still in that taken down, but not put away stage).



























What a day!! I always enjoy special alone-time with my girls, even if this time it happened to be at Claire's.