Spud’s awareness of  jewelry seems to have heighten in the last few months and she has begun to take more notice of the jewelry which either I or the Nanny put on. She also started talking quite a lot about earrings and commenting how beautiful they are. She would always examine my ears closely, tells me how pretty my earrings are and proceed to count all the holes I have (I have 10) .

As the days wore on,  I started noticing that she would always look at the earrings of total strangers  quite longingly, and eventually lets  me know that she wants one for herself. (She actually said she wanted 10!) Considering the number of earholes I have, to say No to Spud would make me very hypocritical.

Besides, I don’t mind piercings at all. In fact, I have always contemplated piercing her ears since she was a baby, mainly to save her the pain in her later years, but  didn’t get to do it because Silver Bullet was against the idea. He thought it was completely unnecessary while I on the other hand, felt that having pierced ears is almost a birth right of every girl – pain and all.  In fact, I still remember the time that when my peers were complaining of the pain they had to endure just to put a hole in each of their ears, I recall vividly that I was really, really glad that my parents got my ears pierced when I was much younger. I think I felt relieved that I didn’t have to go through all that.

And so, for Spud to request for holes in her ears  at her own free-will, actually sounded like music to my ears! I was only too happy to obliged.

She surprised me, no doubt and while I responded with a smile (of relief) when she brought the subject up to me, I also told her that making holes in the ears can be a rather painful experience. I reckon she wasn’t really expecting such answers at first, and although I was secretly happy and wanted it to happen, I continued telling her that she would have to experience some pain to be able to wear earrings.

For weeks she (sort of) hounded me about “making holes in her ears” , and for weeks I told her about the pain; yet each time she responded to me in a very positive note saying,“It’s OK, Mama. It will be painful just a little bit. I’ll be OK.”

I eventually made an appointment at with the Aesthetic Department of Samitivej Hospital, and last week, Spud’s wish to get her ears pierced was duly granted. Local anesthetic was applied to her earlobes an hour before the piercing  was done. She chose her own earrings and when it was time, Spud took the entire experience like a champ. She was really brave and didn’t cry when the doctor used the piercing gun on her. When it was all over, she complained that it was itchy. She then examined my ears, started to count all the holes that I have again and then remarked, “When I’m much bigger, and when I’m 10 years old, I only still want one ear hole. Not so many.”

A far cry from her ambitious goal of wanting “10 earrings” (I haven’t even gone to having navel ring yet!), but I reckon that little bit of pain she experienced post the procedure must have prompted her to think twice about having more than 2! Spud did whine and cried a little bit thereafter, but not because she was in pain, rather because she saw that both her ears were red!

The rest of the day was in fact, rather uneventful with little or no complain about her ears being painful. Her bravery and nonchalance about the whole thing earned her an ice-cream at the end of the day which she devoured all by herself!

At 3 years and 8 months, not-so-little Spud feels proud that she has gone through the slightly uncomfortable experience of having her ears pierced, as well as feeling super excited about her pretty little earrings and she has been constantly showing them off to whoever that would give her the time of the day.