Birthday Surprise!

Yesterday I had a wonderful birthday...which included getting poked by a lot needles!  After a ballet lesson in the morning, followed by lunch with my Mom and two friends from church, I went to get a tetanus shot in my right arm (which is very sore today!).  As soon as I got home that afternoon, my friend Stephanie called me and told me I needed to come over for "a thing".  

So I drove over to her house. Steph and her husband Rick took me to the mall...and we walked around for a bit looking for the place where "the thing" was (I had no idea what it was going to be).  Soon she turned into a little jewelry store called "Claire's", walked up to the counter, and said to the woman there, "This young lady is having a birthday today and she would probably like to get her ears pierced."  

"Stephanie!!" I gasped in surprise, and slapped her in the behind. 

 "What???" she said, "I thought you wanted to!"  

I had told Stephanie in some other conversation we had earlier this month that I had had my ears pierced as a child, but I ended up getting an infection/allergic reaction after I didn't take out a certain pair of earrings for a couple of months (I was nine!).  My ears actually grew around the backs of the earrings, and after discovering that I couldn't get my earrings out one day, my mom had to dig them out with a pin.  After the traumatic experience, I have not worn earrings ever since, and the holes in my ears closed up. So I told Steph that I had been thinking about getting them re-pierced for a long time, but never had the gumption to go and do it. 

So she helped me.  After walking around the store for a while saying things like, "Should I do it? I'm afraid! What if I cry?" (to which Stephanie replied, "I will hold your hand!"), I finally decided to go ahead with it. 

It actually didn't hurt nearly as badly as I remember it hurting the first time when I was nine (actually it hurt much less than the tetanus shot I had gotten earlier that morning!).  Maybe that was because I had my ears pierced before, so the cartilage was not as difficult to go through as it was the first time.  Or maybe because when you are only nine you are more sensitive to pain, who knows?  Anyway it wasn't bad at all. 

Tonight I made my Mom take a few pictures of me to show off the gold stud in my ear lobe (which I have to wear for the next six to eight weeks before I can change it!)

So here is my new ear.  Pretty?  

My birthday full of needles!  

  To finish off my birthday celebrations, today my sister Rachel took me shopping for a new pair of jeans, and tonight my family went out to dinner.

 So that was my wonderful birthday!