Yamaraashi-chan gets her ears pierced.

[elfs]

Yamaraashi-chan's birthday is coming up soon, and she announced that she wanted to get her ears pierced. Before I could put any plans in motion to get that done, her mother asked me if she could do it and I readily acceded.

When she told me where she'd set the appointment, I was a little put off. "Claires?" I said, repeating the name of one of those teeniebopper jewelry places at the local mall. "Why not get one of the community people to do it? Between you, me, and Cern, we've got to know half a dozen piercers." Cern is her boyfriend.

She told me that she couldn't find a single professional piercer who would do it for an eleven-year-old. They wouldn't take anyone less than sixteen. That doesn't make much sense to me. Not to put down Claires too much, I'm sure they're okay and I'm sure Yamaraashi-chan will be fine with the jewelry she got from them. It just seemed sad to me that paranoia about The Law Coming Down has had a deleterious effect and made us go someplace second-best for Yamaraashi-chan's first body jewelry.

I met them at the store, and they had two piercers, both young women in their early 20's, each doing one ear with a tiny, disposable gun. Yamaraashi-chan didn't even blink as the pin went through. "Did it hurt?" I asked. She nodded. Then that puzzled look crossed her face and she said, "It kinda burns, now, too."

"Yeah, it'll do that." She bounded out of the chair while the woman told her about aftercare. Her mother and I read the instructions while Yamaraashi-chan bounced up in front of a wall. "Daddy! I can't see them!" She was trying to jump high enough to see herself in an angled mirror mounted on the ceiling.

"Yamaraashi," I said. "Over there." I pointed to her immediate left, where a floor-length mirror was mounted to the wall not four feet away. "Oh," she said and bounded off.

"Observation skills, kid. Observation skills."

Food!

Anyway, I left them to the rest of their weekend. I gave Yamaraashi-chan a hug and then begged off to go feed the rest of my family. I made Moroccan chicken with couscous and braised asparagus, and between the tumeric and the (cheap, powdered) saffron the chicken was a bright radioactive yellow color. Kouryou-chan was still unhappy with it and she generally likes chicken.

Comments

[mo-hair.livejournal.com]

i just went through this 3 weeks ago. we ended up at the piercing pagoda, and unlike your daughter, mine screamed like all her teeth were being ripped out of her mouth simultaneously. made it tough to get the second ear done. i couldn't believe i couldn't find a piercer to do the job; i too would have preferred it done by hand placing a captive bead ring. in fact, that was why we waited so long. her gymnastics class wouldn't allow a non stud earing on the gymnastic floor for safety reasons. because of that we waited until she decided to drop gymnastics to concentrate on her figure skating. in the end it would not have mattered. no problems with the healing thus far; i just can't wait to change the jewelry.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

I've had my ears pierced twice. The first time was by hand at age 9 or 10 and I had nothing but problems for the next few years. I ended up not wearing earrings and they closed off. Then in my late teens I decided to try it again. By this time they had the guns and I was pleased with how painless it was by comparison. I had no problems with the healing. I do have some metal allergy so can't wear earrings more often than once a week, but they fully healed and I never had the problems I did with the first attempt.

I'm sure Y-chan will be just fine.