Milestone {Pierced Ears}

My baby girl is about to be five.
FIVE!
Today I got out her baby book to make sure I had it all caught up and lo and behold all there is left is her first day of school. That's it. There isn't even a 5th birthday space. I think a little piece of me just died.

I look back and wonder how did we get here so fast?! I remember when she was just a wee babe reading other mommy blogs and them going on and on about their kid(s) turning five and where did the time go...blah blah. I literally sat there believing that I had forever before my baby turned 5. Yet, here I sit just a blink of time later preparing to write the same kind of post.

I have always enjoyed watching my kids grow and learn and take on new milestones, yet this one is hard. This is where we start crossing the threshold of independence. Where she and I have to start relying on teachers, coaches and peers to aide in guiding her. If these last 5 years were fast the next 13 will be gone and done far too soon.

Where was I going with this?! No idea...Oh, ear piercing. So for a few years now I have been bringing up the idea of her piercing her ears. She seemed intrigued, but "wasn't ready" as she would say. Fine. This year we talked about it more and more and she said she wanted to do it for her birthday. I was thrilled! What a big moment.

Yesterday, I took her down to Claire's to have it done. Why is it that Claire's is the only place that pierces ears? I like choices people! I took it to facebook--the land of knowledge. :) Some suggested tattoo places, but um pretty sure I  am NOT taking my 5 year old to a tatted up, big burly dude to get this done. {Yes, I am stereotyping (not judging those are 2 different things!), but COME ON, you know it's true.} Some suggest salons. None of the salons I trusted did it. And finally my doc's office. Again on the no. So to Claire's we went. I don't know what I worried about, that is where I went when I was 5 and daddy went when he was going through some sort of teenage boy thing. {So not a whole lot of leg to stand on with my son later in life. I digress}

She was so excited on the way there. I did explain several times that it would hurt for a hot second and then it would be done. I also explained that we WOULD be leaving with TWO earrings. No matter how much the first poke hurt she would be doing the second one. {My level to empathize with others is a gift really. :) }

The Claire's clerk was super nice and explained everything to her. Lo picked out some pink sparkly studs. She wanted some huge blinged out ones, but I though $50 was a  bit too much for our first pair.

 Nerves are setting in...

The girl got her already and then pulled the trigger.

Oh my. I remember saying 1-2-3 SMILE! and she just stared at me, with eyes wide open, not blinking. Just staring. 1-1000, 2-1000, 3-1000 TEARS.

My heart. Lo did not want to do that again. The girl quickly moved to the other side and I pulled her hands down and said "just do it!!" And it was over.



She seemed a tad mad at me and "regretting" the choice, but shopping always seems to cure her, so I told her to go pick out some new earrings for when she could change them out in 8 weeks. Then all was better.

By the time we walked out of the store she was beaming ear to ear. {pun intended}. She couldn't wait to show daddy. {We were surprising daddy with this adventure--although we discussed that it could happen at anytime}.

She is loving her new earrings and keeps telling me how glad she is that she didn't wait until she was 7!

What pretty girl.

And then we went and got her a mani and pedi. Because you only turn 5 once.

Happy {almost} Birthday baby Girl!!