It'll only hurt for a second...

is what I told both the girls when they decided they wanted their ears pierced.  Mallory has been asking for awhile so since she's 8, which is the age I was when I had mine, and I thought she'd be old enough to take care of them on her own.  And since Bella has to do everything that Mally does, she wanted hers too.  Now let me make one thing clear...Mallory has a high pain tolerance, Bella not so much.  I was almost certain Bella was going to chicken out at some point, but I'll get to that later.  First, the only place we could get them done after 5, that I knew of at the time, was Wal-Mart.  Mallory was sure she didn't want them done there for whatever reason.  But since we were limited on places and time, that's where we went.  We ended up having to wait a good half hour until the lady came back from break.  So I called around to other places b/c I wasn't sure I wanted to wait that long, but the other places I called either didn't do them or I couldn't get them in until even later...Mallory wanted them done that day.  So we waited.  Finally the employee came back so we went to get them done...picked out earrings for both girls.  Mallory went first.  She sat in the chair all by herself.  Was totally excited....until she went to put the earring in.  Mallory flinched and the earring didn't go in and broke.  She cried.  Had to pick out another set to try again.  She was very brave the second round and didn't cry or flinch.  So now my 8 year old has Minnie Mouse earrings and needless to say is VERY PROUD of them.  She had to wear her hair in a ponytail this morning to show them off.  And she even cleaned them this morning all by herself. 

Mallory before the piercing

Before the flinching and tears

Finished product!

Next it was Bella's turn...it didn't go as smooth as Mallory's.  She sat in the chair very good. 

You can see how scared she is

The employee went to pierce the left ear first while I was holding her hand and it went good...only one tear.  We gave her a little break before she started on the second.  This time it wasn't so good.  The earring broke so it didn't go in...the tears were flowing heavily by now.  She had the choice to pick out another pair to try again, which she did.  But she really didn't want to do it again.  So she had the choice of leaving the one in and going back another day to have the other ear done, which they couldn't guarantee that they would have that same set, or taking it out and trying both ears another time or doing both ears right away with another set.  She opted to take the one out and try both of them another day...maybe when she's 10. 

So I did get a shot of the earring in the one ear before we took it out:

So we will try again another day with Bella.  It was quite a tramatic experience for her so I'm pretty sure it'll be awhile before she decides to try it again.