Earrings!

On Sunday night we were relaxing on the couches after our drive back from Evansville. Taylor was playing with my hair and noticed I had earrings on. Knowing the rule that if she wants earrings she must ask Daddy (an agreement Mark and I had come to after she was born), she immediately went over to Mark and said, "Daddy, I want earrings."

Mark was not able to dissuade her, so he accepted her request as an earnest appeal for holes in her ears and declared, "Ok, you can get them tomorrow." Yippee!

After a little bit of online research (St. Louis Moms Like Me) for the best place to go for ear piercing, Taylor and I headed to Claire's at the Galleria on Monday after her gymnastics class.  We couldn't use the pearl earrings my mom had bought her when she was born because Claire's has their earrings preloaded in little single-use guns, so we picked out little amethyst studs for her - the February birthstone. 

The woman piercing Taylor's ears was the Assistant Manager and says she's been doing this for over 4yrs.  She drew little dots on Taylor's ears and we adjusted the placement until they looked just right.  Then she had Taylor hold onto a teddy bear and look to the side at an earring display.  Poke! - first earring in, no problem.  She had Taylor look the other direction.  Poke! - other one in and I don't think Taylor even blinked.  No fussing, no tears, nothing out of the ordinary.

We paid for the earrings and then popped out of the store for a quick iPhone photoshoot to share the fun news.  Taylor was so proud of her little accessories.

Within minutes her ears were red and swollen, but we had lunch and did some shopping and by the time we were out of the mall they looked almost normal again.  We just need to clean and rotate the earrings 3 times a day for the next 6 weeks.  Then we could change the earrings if we want.  Taylor knows the pearl earrings exist and has asked for them a few times already, but I told her she'll have to wait to wear them until after the baby is born.  They'll be kind of like her "Big Sister" earrings.

So far the fun of the earrings is still fresh.  Taylor loves the task of cleaning them (and then mine, and sometimes even Mark's ears after that) and she is pleased to tell people she has new earrings.

I tried to do a little photoshoot with her today to get better shots than the iPhone allows, but I was initially met with resistance.

Then I changed tactics and we took pictures of her "wearing sunglasses."  Bwahaha, mission accomplished.

More fun (non-earring-related) sunglasses shots: