How Much Love?

At Birdie's request, I checked her tattoo last night and informed her that the bits of fuzziness she was worried about were itsy-bitsy scab edges drying up. It took a bit of mother love to look that hard at her healing tattoo. It took a whole hunk of mother love to do what I did last week. I shone a flashlight up Daisy's right nostril to help her figure out how to free the earring from the side of her nose. She needed it out to meet the dress code described in the handbook of American Eagle, her holiday break employer. I peered up the nostril at the backside of the piercing I didn't want Daisy to have in the first place. From the outside, Daisy spun the tiny snippet of metal around. She described how there was some sort of twist that she couldn't figure out how to do that needed to be done to remove the earring. Her nose turned red. The panic rose in her voice. The earring spun in place. I kept shining the flashlight. Eventually, I knew, either her finger or mine would be up that nostril. As my finger inched closer to decision time, the earring popped loose. Happy once again, Daisy left for her Christmas job at American Eagle. I washed my hands and finished preparing dinner. That night, Daisy returned home and told me that American Eagle doesn't care about nose piercings. I wish she'd found that out earlier, but then again perhaps not. Because now I know just how much love it takes to pick someone else's nose. The answer is right here at my fingertips.