Today we took our 4 month old daughter to get earrings. My wife thought it better to do it early on before she started pulling at her ears and so she would never remember having it done. Apparently my wife had her ears pierced when she was around 2 years old, and they stayed infected due to her constantly messing with them.

I don’t know why, but I felt odd about the whole thing. She’s so young! Of course I want her to have her ears pierced, but I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. It’s such a huge event for such a tiny child. But the logic in my wife’s argument won me over so off we went.

We decided to go to Merle Norman close to our house. Two young ladies were running the store, and they both picked up on my apprehension almost immediately. Of course, I didn’t exactly try to hide it either. They both looked relatively sane and competent, but I couldn’t resist asking them if they had done this before, how young the babies were, pros and cons, what to expect, and if they were SURE they could handle this. They laughed at me and assured me everything would be fine.

They first cleaned Addison’s ears really well with disinfectant pads. Then they marked the center of her earlobes with a pink marker and had us confirm that’s where we wanted the holes to be. Both ladies then lined up their “guns” and counted to 3. And POW – it was over.

Addison sat there with startled, wide eyes for about half a second and then proceeded to shatter all the glass in the store. I was shocked, horrified, furious, and pretty sure I was going to vomit right on the floor in front of the counter. Then, much to my surprise, Addison quit crying and started smiling. SMILING???

That’s right. The pain lasted about 30 seconds (apparently) and then she was back to her old happy-go-lucky baby self. I on the other hand had to take deep breaths and try to keep from being sick for a good hour after we left the store.

I consider myself a pretty strong guy. Blood doesn’t bother me. I clean up puke and other vile things with the best of them. I used to hunt and clean my own animals before I ate them for God’s sake. But there’s something about my tiny little baby girl that can reduce me to a quivering mess in no time flat.

I kind of like it.