Who's in Charge Here?

Spring in Michigan can be simply wonderful or unimaginably terrible. Thankfully, we have a good one on our hands. Yesterday, while the younger two kids napped, I spent some time outside with O and Em on a beach towel in the grass. The conversation touched on many topics, from school to bugs to popsicles and, ultimately, pierced ears.

Can I say that I LOVE little babies with pierced ears? Is that so wrong?? It took a while to convince J that Em needed them. A long while. When she was turning two, J finally agreed that getting Em's ears pierced would be a good idea.

After all, I had waited until I was five to have mine pierced. When they were healed, my mom convinced me to change my piercing studs to a pair of earrings I had received as a gift: little blue discs with hand-painted flowers on them. (See how traumatic this is?! I remember those earrings like it was YESTERDAY.) So, we proceeded to remove the first earring and HOLY HELL that HURT! If you thought I'd be changing the other earring, you would be SORELY mistaken. As a result, I walked around for a month or so with two different earrings in my ears, basically out of fear. And pain. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Anyway. Two seemed like a good age for Em to have hers done. Old enough to not rip them out and not old enough to remember the "trauma". So, I took her to the shop, she cried for about 10 seconds per ear, received a sucker for her troubles, and that was that. Easy-peasy.

Then, along came Alayna. AND my sister's twins. Mel and I start talking almost at their births about how cute it would be to get their ears pierced. All three. All together. YAY! Until J catches wind of the talk. I pretty much get a "NO WAY IN HELL" response from him. Whatever. He'll come around. Six months later, we plan the triple baptism and think how cute it would be if all the girls got their ears pierced. SO cute. Except not in J's mind.

So the twins have pierced ears and Alayna does not. Bah. I've been working on him heavily for three months. No dice. J is not interested. So I ask him WHY and his response? "I don't want holes in her VIRGIN ears." Seriously. I am holding back the laughter that is building inside. Virgin ears. Right.

Back to the beach towel. Here's the conversation:
Em: Mom, why do I have my ears pierced and Alayna doesn't?
Me: I want to get her ears pierced, but Dad said no.
Em: Well, is he the BOSS of you?