When Ellie was two she found Peter Pan’s Flight at Disney World unacceptably terrifying. We wanted to ride it as a family for our last ride on the trip, and tried bargaining with her. She announced that she would go on the ride if she could get “Princess Ears.” Having seen the princess style Mickie Mouse ears at various shops around the park all week, we okayed this deal. Exiting the ride, Ellie was SO EXCITED to go get her Princess Ears. We marched right on over to the nearest mouse ear kiosk, and presented Ellie with her reward.
Only there had been a terrible mistake. By “Princess Ears” Ellie had meant PIERCED ears, not a stupid hat.
She told us that we were the worst. We told HER that she should learn better English.
Pictures of Ellie telling all about the pirates in Peter Pan’s Flight and running off to get her some Princess Ears:
Well, Ellie’s wait for Princess Ears finally ended. We had decided that she could have her ears pierced during her First Communion year. We were all set to get them pierced in May, but Ellie learned earlier this month of the “you can’t wear different earrings for the first month” rule when her friend got her ears pierced. Ellie explained that she had been hoping to wear my lucky earrings for her first communion. This touched all the soft gooey places of my heart because she has always been very sweet about my lucky earrings. So instead of having to wait until May, she got to get her ears pierced in March. Well played, Eloise. The princess ears game finally played out in your favor.
We went to a local tattoo/piercing parlor since that is the current recommendation over the kind of mall places I went for my ear piercing. Benefits are reportedly lower infection rates and a better piercing since a needle is used versus a “blunt trauma” piercing gun.
Pens and Needles is the piercing shop in Colorado Springs that has the most word-of-mouth for little girl ear piercing, and so that was our choice (and how perfect is that name?!). Taking kids to a pediatrician is also a good option for those concerned about infection. I ultimately chose a piercing place over a pediatrician since they do more piercings and theoretically could have more expertise in piercing (as an added bonus they also charged less than the local pediatricians).
I was pleased with the overall experience, and to date Ellie’s piercings have been infection free and look great. One of the unexpected benefits of using a tattoo parlor was seeing her have sweet interactions with people with piercings and gauges and facial tattoos. She would not have had that at the pediatrician!
Tips for first time piercers:
You may want to make an appointment to make sure your little one isn’t sitting nervously with a long wait: Pens and Needles only has their piercer for kiddos present on Saturdays (at least at the time we made our appointment).
You’ll need to bring your child’s birth certificate as well as your ID.
The piercings at Pens and Needles are bar bell style piercings (like you would see in someone’s pierced tongue) versus the kind of posts and backs I’d always seen with earrings. I think this makes them slightly more comfortable at night and more secure (though I started tightening Ellie’s every morning after I got a call from her school one afternoon after one back fell out and the teacher didn’t know how to put it back on).
When you select an earring you aren’t just selecting the size of the gem, but the size of the post and therefore the size of the piercing hole. The smaller the number, the larger the hole. Ellie chose a medium sized gem, which was a 16 gauge. I didn’t make the connection that this was the gauge of the post size. A more common size for an ear piercing would be 18-20. I felt awful when I first discovered this, because not only did it make for a more painful piercing, but I was worried that her holes would be too large for standard sized earrings. More research revealed this not to be the case, and some even recommend a 16 gauge over smaller because they better accommodate different earing widths and won’t look stretched out. But I do think it made the piercing more painful for her (she was uncomfortable for that whole first day, which I don’t remember after getting my ears pierced).
Pre-medicate! I felt guilty for not thinking to toss some Advil at her an hour before the piercing.
And my final tip: DO NOT coincidentally allow your child to hold an electric guitar for the first time on the very same day she visits a tattoo parlor:
