Growing by leaps and bounds

I've always said I'd not get Raegans ears pierced till she asked for them. Always said that. Which kind of kicked me in the butt when she went, overnight it seems, from fearful fascination to eager anticipation of the event. So after calling around to every local jeweler, the pediatricians office, and half the city in general for advice, I took her in to Claire's, the only "jeweler" in Central Oregon, it appears, who does ear piercing & is not located in a tattoo shop. To say I was nervous was an understatement, but not Raegan! She was just excited! But as the time drew nearer, you could see the nerves creeping up on her....

Oh my goodness, was I hurting for my little princess! We've watched gobs of YouTube videos of other children getting their ears pierced so she knew what to expect. She knew it would hurt. But she was still surprised!!

Going in to this, she knew this place would do one at a time where most of the videos had two ladies piercing, so it was both at once. She knew that she had to get the second one done if she got the first one done. So we took a minute after the first piercing and calmed down. A nice mama had just come into the store with her own child who'd had hers pierced recently, and she did a great job of distracting Raegan for the second piercing..

I am SO proud of her. SO PROUD. She was all done with the tears and eager to look in a mirror literally 30 seconds after it was all over. She got over it quickly. But whoa. It totally broke my heart to see her hurting.

And now... well I'm all a gush. We went to a movie directly after getting them done and I ended up cuddling her on my lap for the whole thing. It feels like today was kind of a big step towards big kid, towards growing up, towards being her own person.... away from me. I don't think I was nearly as ready for this as Raegan was.