Leah's Been Pierced!

I usually don't have work on Wednesdays, so that's the day we do all our traipsing about the town. Don't act like you don't traipse. You totally do.

Anyway, on this particular Wednesday we had decided to traipse about Forever 21, because we had heard about it, but hadn't yet experienced it. If the same goes for you, let me tell you; Forever 21 is Forever overrated. What is with all the shirts that are short in the front, longer in the back, but way wider than they are long? Am I old, or is the fashion really ugly right now? I did manage to score a black sweater for 8 bucks, though. But, that's not the point of the story. I'm getting there. Swear.

After our Forever letdown experience, we enter into the vast beyond of the mall. First stop, Claire's. Leah loves Claire's, and I do too as it was the place who gave me my first job. A 16 year old girl in a jewelry store? I know, right? Meeemmmoories. Next time you're there notice how they organize the towers of earrings in a shapes, hoops, dangles manner. It's how I organize my jewelry to this very day.

As we cross the threshold of Leah's favorite place, the associate points us in the direction of the clearance section and tells us everything there is 10 for 10 bucks. Another shopping victory! Leah grabs a basket and begins the fury of filling that baby up. There were 2 other moms there and a girl who was probably 9 years old doing the same thing. Leah asks the other moms who had been digging in the treasure longer than us if they had seen any clip on earrings. They start handing her some, along with some magnetic ones, when the little girl says "You don't have your ears pierced? You should totally do it. It doesn't hurt". And one of the moms says "I pierced all my girls ears when they were babies. You could wear the real earrings then". And that's when a I saw a crack in Leah's if-you-even-touch-my-ears-I'll-have-a-freak-out-like-you-won't-believe wall. So I ask her if she wants to go and look at the desk where they do the piercing. She checks out the page of earrings and decides she wants to go for it. I immediately throw my hand up in the air and whistle the associate over. We've got a live one here and the key is to ACT FAST before she can freak herself out. The girl starts going over the spiel and I rush her through it. Let's do this thing. Except, it took awhile to get the placing right with their marker. Turns out, Leah has some funky shaped earlobes. Weird. She totally gets that from her dad.

Boo had managed to sit in the chair, holding the piercing bear, all by herself until the big moment. Then she wanted to sit in my lap, which was good because then I can pull out the mom hold of extreme still. The associates count to 3 and, "click", in go the studs. Immediately Leah starts crying. Not screaming, thank goodness, just big, fat tears crying. The girls who did her this injustice squirt on the cooling solution and hand her a mirror to help her stop crying. It was in that mirror that I could see Leah, and she could see me, and she shot me the dirtiest look of hatred that I have ever seen cross her face. Which of course makes me start laughing. A few more douses of the solution and Leah is feeling much better. I'm laughing and smiling with such joy and pride in my scaredy Boo. She did it, the poor thing.

We go back to the earrings and she trades out her clip ons and magnets for the real deal. Outside of the store we text everyone a picture of her ears with the caption "Look what Leah just did!", and then let the accolades pour back. My Boo. I was so proud of her.

Ah, another milestone. We've had a big year with my little Boo. This summer she finally braved Bo's water slide, and then managed the biggest tricks on it of all the grandkids.

She was the only one who dared stand next to Mr. Fredericksen at the Up house.

She touched the all the Halloween decorations this year and then stuck out her tongue at them with a "you can't scare me" attitude.

Her courage seems to be creeping in, very, very slowly, but I guess still surely. She is still afraid of EVERYTHING, which can be infuriating sometimes, but maybe eventually she'll cautiously grow out of that. We'll just get to watch and wait. They payoff will burst my heart, I'm sure.