Here is a shot of my little girl about to get her ears pierced at Claire's in the mall. She turned 10 years old this month, and we decided that it would be okay to get her ears pierced. We talked at length about our bodies and what we want to project as women. There is a big difference between piercing your ear and piercing all the other parts of your body. And they are done for totally different reasons. I wanted Madison to see that it is okay to want to be pretty and feminine, but it is not okay to put holes all over your body to get men to look at you. Yes, I wax protective, because I want her to grow up to be confident of who she is in this backwards world.

Anyway, she was very brave, even though we teased her that it would hurt so bad she would scream and cry. She said it hurt but not that much. Her choice of her first earring was her birthstone, the amethyst. Many people believe that wearing your birthstone brings good luck, health, or wards off bad luck, however, birthstones really have their origins in... you guessed it... Scripture! Another thing taken by the world and twisted into folklore. In Exodus 28, the priests of the 12 Tribes of Israel are instructed to make a breastplate of sorts, called the breastplate of judgments or the breastplate of decisions. It contained one jewel for each of the 12 Tribes and was worn when the priest made a judgment call on something. Pretty cool! Of course, over time, this was taken to other cultures and eventually came to symbolize the 12 stones for the 12 months of the year. Eventually, the Jewelers of America came up with a standardized American version of the 12 birthstones. That is the chart we use today.

Enough history lesson... let's see her with her new earrings...



There she is! She looks great, and she is busy cleaning them 3 times a day for the next 6 weeks. She's already acting older and more mature... we'll see how long that lasts! LOL!

Tags: pierced ears