Saturday, February 07, 2009

Rites Of Passage

Leah asked to have her ears pierced last night.

In many families this wouldn't even be a topic of conversation since many girls are pierced as babies. Newborns ears heal quickly, there is barely any resistance to the needle when its done and newborns heal quickly. Less chance of infection.

Nevertheless I never felt comfortable with the idea of putting holes solely for the purpose of decoration on her body without her consent.

Today we took her over to Utopia to have the professional body piercer there talk to her about it. It is important that Leah understand that she has to clean the piercings every day, by rotating the hoops and applying antiseptic cleaner. The piercers won't do it unless Leah absolutely wants it done. She can't be scared or forced into it.

After visiting there twice today she decided she is going to wait until she is 5 before thinking about it again. The piercer is a guy and she wasn't crazy about a guy piercing her ears.

I suspect this will change on Monday when she goes to school and sees her BFF's earrings again.

Then we will be back at Utopia next Saturday and probably every now and again until she finally becomes comfortable with the whole process.

Much like visiting Santa.

With Santa and with the characters at Disney we pushed her a bit. With the piercing thing we won't push her. Putting holes in her body, that will always be her choice.

She can wait.

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