
Maya has been wanting to get her ears pierced for quite awhile, but I didn't really know that because Maya doesn't talk about her wishes. One day, Chloe started talking about it, because Chloe talks about everything. I turned to Maya and said, "Do you want your ears pierced?"

She got a huge grin on her face as she gave me an affirmative nod. (When Maya nods her head, it's very dramatic; locs flying everywhere. You just have to see it.) So I said, "Ok, sure, maybe we can go get your ears pierced this weekend!' That was a couple of weeks ago.
As it turns out, Kyle had a different opinion. When she asked him, he said, "Why do you want to get your ears pierced?" That stopped her dead in her tracks, so he told her she needed to be able to give him a good reason.

Finally, Friday night, Maya went up to Kyle and said she had thought of a good reason. "When I was in Liberia, my mom and aunt were going to pierce my ears, but then it was farming season, so I had to wait, and then it was time for me to go to the orphanage. Getting my ears pierced was one of the last things I remember wanting to do with my mom while I was still in Liberia."
That pretty much broke Kyle and he immediately pulled me aside to say that he would like to have it done the very next day.
So, early Saturday morning (and when I say "early" it is a relative term, given that it was Saturday), we all marched up to the mall (a place I almost never go, and I certainly don't ever take my kids there!) and we had Maya's ears pierced.

She is extremely happy about it and very proud of herself.
