All Ears

The day that Hannah had been waiting for HER WHOLE LIFE came about two weeks ago. She finally got her ears pierced. Lizzie had to wait HER WHOLE LIFE PLUS ONE WEEK because she made some very bad choices (the modern day euphemism for she was b.a.d.!!!) and lost the privilege of holes in her ears for one week.
Anyway, my original plan was to pretend we were taking our usual Sunday drive and then end up at Sweet and Sassy for the big reveal that today was the day. And that's sort of how it went, except for that Lizzie was kicking the seat, her sister and her mother just because she thought that the Sunday drive was SO BORING.
When I told Hannah that we were at Sweet and Sassy to get her ears pierced she started to cry she was so excited. Lizzie may have shed a tear or two but not for the same reason.
 While Rob took Lizzie on a little walk around the mall, I took Hannah in. She was so excited and selected her earrings (a pair of crystal stars) right away. Then two piercers came and marked her ears and viola! two more holes in her head.
Here she is bracing for the inevitable pain (she said it pinched for just a second):

And here she is with her new look:

The  next week we did it all over again and this time Lizzie was very well behaved in the car. In fact, she had been very well behaved all week, so I actually took three days off her punishment and let her have her ears pierced in a week instead of waiting until her actual birthday. She selected a pair of crystal flower earrings that have clear crystal petals and a blue crystal center.
Here she is getting pierced (she said it hurt a little):

And here she is with her new earrings:

In this picture you can also see that they sprayed glitter in her hair, and she also got a cupcake body spray and a lollipop and they gave her a certificate with her picture on it and another she could put on the wall (Hannah got the same treatment.) All in all it was worth the $35 it cost to have it done.

Taking care of the ears has been rather interesting. Hannah, who SWORE to me that she was old enough to take care of her own ears has cleaned them ZERO times (I do it morning and night for both of them) and one of Lizzie's earrings fell out during the night at Grandma Connie's house so I had to sort of repierce her ear in the bathroom in the middle of the night. Fun times.
This of course harkened back to when I got my own ears pierced at a mall on Cape Cod during my freshman year in college.
I got my ears pierced at 18 years of age and then let one of them close up about two years later because I kept losing earrings and wore just one most of the time and it was just my very cool personal fashion statement. Eventually I let the other one close up too, though, because when you reach a certain age people just think you forgot to wear an earring, not that you are making a totally cool personal fashion statement.