Never let them see you cry

My 6 year old got pierced ears yesterday. She has asked me about them for quite awhile, many of her friends have them. She went to a birthday party and in her loot bag was a pair of earrings which she really wanted to wear, so I offered to take her in. She was extremely nervous and scared of the pain. She probably would have back out but the people doing the piercing tricked her and it was done, she loved them so much she didn’t even care about the trick.

Today she was roughhousing with her sister and an earring came out.  She comes running to me with her earring in hand.  I didn’t help matters the way I reacted but my mind starts racing, shoot!  How the heck?  Knowing how hard it was to get the damn things in in the first place. I try to put it back in and she screams in pain, try again she cries before I even get it a little bit in. I give her some Tylenol and put ice on her ear. She wouldn’t even let me try to get it back in. 

"Just throw them in the garbage!" she wails

"I spent a lot of money on these" I say and I try and explain that I would appreciate it if she would just let me try and see if it hurts at all anymore.

"No! I just want to throw them out!" she sobs. 

I tell her that she’s not taking the other earring out and she will be walking around with one earring until she can afford to pierce this ear again herself. That doesn't even motivate her. Overwhelming feelings of failure consume me into tears. How could I, a woman who could win the 'cheapest witch award' raise such a spoiled selfish brat? Okay that's a little extreme, I know she's just being very stubborn.

I feel sick about the money I’ve wasted on this bad decision. I feel guilty about the fact that I sort of forced this on her, since I felt obligated when the store had the guns loaded, set to go and for us to walk out the earrings would have been wasted. I feel selfish about the fact that I expect her to ‘suck it up’ and take the pain while I reinsert this damn thing so we don’t have to, waste money and go through this all over again. (If she's willing to pay for it should I really care??)

She comes up to me later and says “I’m sorry mommy, I really wanted to try, but I’m just too scared of the pain.” Hum..not sure what to make of that yet, could it be true, could her fear of pain really outweigh her love of her new earrings? 
She tiptoes around me the rest of the day, obviously distraught over the tears she has witnessed.