What's on your Face?

This was our morning observation and conclusion with Jessica breaking the genetic ties for Freckles Vs No Freckles.

Jessica is loving first grade and her introduction to the "big-kid" schedule. She's starting to make herself more independent by wanting to do her own hair (hit or miss, at best)...choose her own clothes (from the 2 choices I give her)...and come to her own conclusions about why things happen the way they do (way too random to help out there!) So we had a little conversation this morning about her face. It started with me asking her--"What's on your face?" Nothing. "Go wash your face." Ok. "Go wash your face again." Why? I just did. "You missed some spots." She starts to lick around her mouth. "Not that spot. Go wash your face again." Fine. But I'm going to do my own hair. "That's not what I said." Hmmph!

Spots were still noticeable after three scrubs. So I went to take a closer look at the problem. Well. There's no problem. I think nature might be getting off to a late start on delivering sun kisses to Jessica--but I think that's what they are!

Most people with a simple biological understanding know that we are genetically predispositioned to get or not get freckles. I have loads of freckles. Jeff doesn't have any. So there's a reasonable 50/50 chance that we'd have freckled or freckle-less children--or some variation in between. And with five kidlets, you kind of get to see the gene pool at work. We don't usually keep score in the genetic department, but here's the freckle ratios. Ashley doesn't have freckles. Nathan doesn't have freckles. But Cameron and Braden definitely have large helpings of those genetic hits of melatonin.

I thought Jessica was going to remain blemish-free of the "sun kisses" because I haven't seen too much change in her skin-tone or coloring since she was a baby...until now! I noticed 2-3 spots on her face recently that I thought were traces of food. After washing her face several times, she kept coming back with a spotty wet mug. So what's going on?

Not doing the job right? Nope. It's not chocolate. It's not markers. It's not even boogers! I think we have a new case of Freckles in the family! That means 4 people with freckles, and 3 without freckles. Woo Hoo!

With or without freckes, she's definitely a cutie...and a soon-to-be freckled cutie, at that! Jessica doesn't think anything of them. She's still too worried about the tooth she just lost down the drain the other night and how the tooth fairy is going to pay her without a tooth--never mind the gaping hole in the front of her mouth! I'm sure we'll have to fabricate some story about shrinking fairies, squishy drains, and twice the amount of money for pain and suffering sans tooth...but for now, I'm still chuckling about the sweet sun kisses on her cheeks.

And between spitting teeth down the drain and washing her face, she's constantly got her nose stuck in a Junie B Jones book these days. But I had a thought...she might get a thrill to read one of my childhood favorites--Freckle Juice, by Judy Blume!