The Earring Saga- Continued!

So we broke the sink but found that missing earring right? Well the story does not end there. Sweetie tried to put the earring on the next day and the post was bent. When she tried to straighten it, the little glitter ball snapped right off! All that effort to save the earring and then we end up with it broken too??? She was so disappointed (not to mention us!).

The next day I took her to the store and explained that it had broken before she'd even had a chance to wear them once and they let her pick out a new pair! Whew! They didn't have the same ones exactly but she found something similar and hopefully not as fragile!

I tried to get a picture of the newly changed earrings but she was pretty busy!

The plumber comes today to fix the sink. Being down to one functional bathroom has been a bit tricky the last few days, especially for those brushing their teeth all over the house and forgetting that they can't spit in that sink anymore! Gross!

Lots of dancing action lately on the Wii! Just Dance 4 is giving us a workout and improving our dance moves! Look out Jagger!

Ear We Go Again!!!

Ugh!!! Ears are our downfall this week! 

First, I took Checkers to the vet as he had really begun shaking his head almost constantly. We thought he might have gotten an ear infection but since they do t do anything or give antibiotics when  the kids get them, we thought it would clear up. The vet looked at me stunned when I asked her if that would have happened. "Are you talking about your kids' ears and your dog's ears...!?!?!?" Ummm uhhhh, no of course not cuz apparently that would be idiotic. (That last part might have been just in my head...)

So once a day we have to hold him, squirt cleaner into his ear canals, massage for a couple minutes to work it in well. Then I have to clean it all back out with cotton balls. Twice a day I need to jam the long nosed bottle of medicated drops down inside each ear and squeeze out 4-5 drops (which I can't actually see coming out and have to guesstimate that I'm applying the right amount of pressure to release), and more massaging. He fights us a bit less if we double team him and the bottles are warmed a bit first so they're not completely cold. 

So that's one situation. 

Next, we went shopping today for earrings. Honey had a $10 coupon for Claire's and Sweetie is able to change her earrings tomorrow but had none to put in. Honey couldn't find 3 pairs she liked so she and Sweetie shared her coupon and the buy 2 get 1 free deal. They decided to spend the extra and get sterling silver so they wouldn't have problems with the cheap metal. Yay! Lovey found some that she liked and everyone was happy. 

Happiness is a tricky thing. It can disappear soooooo fast! Sweetie decided to clean the new earrings so they'd be ready for tomorrow might. Unfortunately, she knocked over the bottle of peroxide which somehow bumped her brand new sparkly turquoise earring and send it....somewhere. We shook out the bath mats, we swept the floor, rumbled around in the drawer by the sink and we removed everything from the counter. Murray used his high power flashlight trying to catch a glimmer...nothing. The last option was the sink. It could have fallen down the drain. Sweetie was extremely upset and the tears were flowing. We examined the drain pipe and it has one of those U bend/trap things that looked like you could take apart! Maybe it was stuck on the little cap! Maybe it is. We'll never know because we couldn't get the thing open despite a few efforts with various wrenchy type things. 

So that was that. No earring retrieved but maybe more caution will be employed in future near open drains! (highly doubtful)

Well then Lovey decided to change her earrings to the new ones purchased today. She came to find me when she felt something hard and lumpy in the hole. "Mummy, I think the back of my earring got stuck inside the hole!"

That didn't sound good, or very likely so I took her to the vanity mirror to investigate. Oh dear heaven, there was something black and chunky in there!!! Holy crap! IS it the piece of metal that somehow got sucked into the hole and wedged there?!??? How would I get THAT out without a handy bout of unconsciousness?!?!? I decided to see if I could pull it out, but there wasn't much to grab onto. Luckily I remembered my tweezers and disinfected those. I almost had a hold of the piece protruding when she noticed I had tools involved and started screaming. We'd now been poking and pulling and disinfecting the spot for awhile and it was sore. I was worried about leaving it in but there was no convincing her to let me try much more. Instead I poured rubbing alcohol on the front and back, cleaned the studs off got them back in and put polysporin on and called it quits for now. We're hoping it is just some dried blood and will keep on disinfecting the site every day and watch it carefully. 

And if anyone (not naming any names... *cough*cough*Nanny) knows how to open that darn trap thing in the bathroom sink drain pipe, give us a call!! Sweetie is pretty sad that her $18.75 earrings are half gone!

Here are a few of the tools of the trade today!

*UPDATE*

Murray didn't give up! He was back at the plumbing tonight and managed to get the cap off the trap! There wasn't anything in there unfortunately. In a last ditch effort, he unbent a coat hanger and put it down the drain to see if it might have gotten stuck on the way down but no luck there either.

Except for some bad luck. The jiggling from the coat hanger caused the pipe to snap, although upon closer inspection, it looked like a section had already weakened and rusted away prior to tonight's activities.

But, all is not lost! Actually, all is found! He happened to look in the drawer beside the sink (previously inspected to no avail) and spied something glittering in the beam of his headlamp! Sweetie will be so thrilled that he found her expensive earring! We are not nearly as excited about the $200 plumbing bill. Nanny, cancel the trap order, can you come install a new pipe instead???

But all is not lost! Actually all is FOUND! He happened to look in the (previously briefly inspected to no avail) drawer beside the sink and spied something glittering in the beam of his headlamp! Sweetie will be so thrilled that he found her expensive earring. We are not nearly as enthused about the $200 impending plumbing bill. Nanny, please cancel the request for a trap opening and update us to "pipe replacement"???

On a brighter note, Honey had a lovely day, got some new earrings which she did not lose and found a great book to read in the latest pile from Grammie.

My highlight of the day was being able to dig some of that gunk out of Lovey's earring hole before bed tonight. The cleaning, disinfecting and polysporining seems to be working.

Must go look up that plumber's number...

Long Awaited!

Finally! I think Sweetie was the first one to start asking about getting ears pierced so it was surprising that she was the last one to get it done! Although, with her tendency to worry about everything to the extreme, I guess it's not totally shocking. For several weeks after the other 2 got theirs done, she really didn't say much. Then came the day they could change their earrings. Then she started telling me she thought she was ready to go back and wanted to know when I could take her. I told her we weren't going until she was POSITIVE she was ready. By the end of the day she was pretty sure and the next day she said she wanted to go do it, but she wanted it to be a surprise. I had taken the other two shopping while she was at gymnastics the day before so we just told them it was her turn to go. They immediately pounced on her though, asking if she was going to get her ears done. We deflected and evaded but they were suspicious. Earlier that day at camp, Sweetie had told Boo that she was planning to go, and Tulip overheard but they told her it was a secret. Tulip has a hard time with secrets! She told the other 2 while she was over for a swim while we were gone.

Anyway, we got to the mall and headed back to Claire's. There was a young guy working who told me they didn't have any consent forms left. Luckily I had the old one from when she balked, still in my purse. Unluckily, I'd already signed and dated it and they wouldn't accept any initialed changes (wow, they're more stringent than the bank I used to work for!!!). After we left, Sweetie said she was glad we couldn't go there because she was nervous about a boy doing her ears! We found an esthetics store that could do them for her so all was not lost.

She didn't take long picking out the earrings she wanted and then took her seat. I love her face as the first ear was getting pierced! She was really bracing herself! As soon as that was in, she smiled in amazement, and exclaimed happily "that was NOTHING!!!" She still held her breath for the second one just in case though LOL

The clerk noticed she'd put in the wrong stud though and out of the side of her mouth, to me, said "I'll give you 10% off"  and then explained to Sweetie what happened and talked up how pretty the wrong one was. The only choice was to take it out and make a new hole so we went with the pretty mistake instead (and the discount of course haha!)

She's really happy to have her new earrings and practically skipped back to the car, excited to tell her sisters her big news! (see what's coming here???) So we got home and found out they already knew and she was NOT happy and sooooo upset with Tulip for telling and burst into tears of disappointment and anger, demanding to know WHY Tulip told them. Tulip turned on the tears also and said she was sorry but Sweetie was too upset to listen. I walked Tulip home and she cried a bit more and said she doesn't like it when people tell her secrets because she knows she can't keep them! By the time I got back everything had settled down and they were getting ready for stories.|

She's been happily showing everyone her new look all week! (and will be excited to show her grandparents also, so you did NOT hear this from me!!!)

Bring on the Bling!

Right after we'd finished our pizza supper with Nanny & Grampy, we headed to the mall for "dessert". Or so we told the girls. When we got inside, we went directly to Claire's and announced that anyone who was ready to pierce their ears could have it done that night. Lovey was all for it! Honey was fairly keen and Sweetie was in a dither of indecision.

They browsed the selections, of course finding the $64 pairs the most appealing. Considering these are starter earrings that are discarded as soon as they're allowed to change them, we opted for a different category!

Since Lovey was the most keen, she went first and was so excited that she didn't really worry too much about it hurting.  Her face as the earring went through was priceless. I really couldn't remember what it  had felt like but didn't remember it hurting either so told them it was just a quick pinch. Lovey was surprised when it hurt more than she'd expected! Her eyes bugged out but it was over so fast she didn't have time to get upset. Once she got some cleaner put on, it was soothed anyway and she went straight on to the second ear and was done in no time. Sweetie observed quietly and determined that although it had obviously hurt, it didn't see to be tooooo bad...

Honey braved it next and the first one went quickly but she felt it hurt quite a bit and gasped and started to cry. Sweetie didn't like the looks of that ONE bit and quickly stated she was NOT having that done! Honey's ear got cleaned and then she was fine and willing to proceed with the second side.

Then Sweetie's big dilemma.... she hemmed and hawed. She asked the employee if THEY thought she should do it, but based 400 piercings and tattoos SHE had, I quickly interjected that she was not an impartial subject!

The temptation was HUGE but not as big as the fear. She was hoping we'd just sit her down and make her do it so it wouldn't be up to her to decide (aka she'd have someone to rail at if it went horribly awry). We just kept telling her it was her decision. In the end she couldn't bring herself to go through with it and we went for ice cream instead. As we ate our DQ blizzards, she thought she might be ready but we weren't willing to go back in and bother the poor clerk again! We told her that when she was really sure, we would take her one more time and that would be the final opportunity with us. Neither of us wants to make weekly visits to the shop for her to fret and fuss over whether to do it or not! Of course, that night while tucking them in, she grumbled that she wished she'd gotten in done, or that we'd forced her to!

It's been over a couple weeks now and she's still not asking to go back but really wishes hers were done so it's probably not far off for Sweetie!

Choices, choices, choices!

The anticipation!!!

Love this shot, as they debate the "to pierce, or not to pierce??? situation.

Ready, aim, fire!

Done deal!

The final results!

Lost & Found!

I went to my friend's wedding back in early October of last year. While there, I visited an old friend of Murray's from university and his family for a day. We were all over the place with at least 6 different stops/locations. As I was about to take my leave at the end of the day, I noticed I'd lost one of my earrings. It was a pair that the girls had picked out for me for Christmas a few years ago. I thought I'd lost one once but Lovey found it under her bed. So when this one went missing, I knew the chances of it turning up were pretty slim. We scoured their van, the restaurant we were in at the time, the parking lot... everywhere! No sign of it and when they got home later, they couldn't find it.

The other day I was on facebook and saw this picture on Tory's page, with a question: Kelly is this your earring???

Lucky for me, it fell out while I was still at their house and they found it under a seat cushion! How sweet is that? Hooray! and I'll have to get that clasp fixed because I doubt the third time would be a charm in this case!

Lo and behold!

I had one bright spot on the weekend so I thought I should post something upbeat so I don't have to type through tears again!

Back in 2008, one of my cousins asked me if I would shoot his wedding and then I also ended up making their wedding cake. I didn't have my photography business set up then and they were looking for a free photographer so it was a perfect match! However, they had planned to make me a pair of earrings as they felt it would be a more fair exchange of services that way. I wasn't too concerned about it and had long since forgotten about the offer until Aunt Cathy dropped by with a little box for me!

I had had a pair similar to this but as with all favourite earrings, one got lost. When they had asked what I'd like, I had given them the remaining one and she recreated them almost exactly!

Something very positive and much appreciated in such a sad time! Loving my new earrings!!!

Day 5- not as horribly awful as days 1-4 but still pretty darn empty...