Scrutiny

These eyes were staring me down yesterday.  All day long.  Every time I had a conversation with her I was met with this intense stare.  She wasn't looking in my eyes, her focus was always in the same place... right in the middle of my forehead.  Right at my bullseye zit.

She would look really hard and then would just contemplate it or think to herself.  Finally she just asked me what it was.

"Mom?  What is that?"
"What is what Olivia."
"That big thing.  Right there.  On your head.  That big red thing.  What is it?"
"It's a zit Olivia."
{Olivia pauses}
"But why?  Why is it a zit?  Is it an owie?"
"Well, yeah it kinda hurts, but it isn't just a regular owie... it's a zit."
"A ZIT?!?"
"Yes, Olivia.  A. Zit."
"Oh....Can I get zits?"
"You don't get zits until you are big to the wall, Olivia" (big to the wall in Olivia dialect is when you are all grown up, for whatever reason that is what she terms a grown up as).
"So you can get zits Mom?"
"Yes."
"So Daddy can get zits too?"
"Yes."
"So, what IS it.  A zit, what is it?"
"Olivia....I don't know, it just IS.  It's a zit.  That's it."
"Can you put a bandaid on it?"
"I could, I guess, but you don't really put bandaids on zits."
"Oh.  But, why?"


All day long she stared me and that zit down.  All freakin' day long.  She would surprise ask me to see if I changed my tune and would just call it an owie.  She would look at me for a long time and then just blurt out.
"But MOM!  What IS it?  A zit?  But WHY??"

I wasn't about to try to explain to her the inner workings of a pimple or how you can get them.  I wash my face, I take care of my skin but sometimes those suckers just come.  And as the day progressed I felt like that zit was turning neon.  A giant pulsating bullseye that commanded my daughters full attention.

At the park she was staring at it, on the walk home she was asking about it.  At dinner she would just look  at me, no at it.  It was like it was this fantastical thing that she couldn't put her brain around.  I have had pimples before, it's not like she hasn't seen them, but for whatever reason she couldn't take her mind off of it.

Of course it didn't help that I had a function to go to that night and was super self conscious of my face at this point.  I am hoping that her fascination with pimples goes away by the next time one happens to grace my face or I might just have to put us all in quarantine for the day.