“Daddy,” my five year old asked. “Does mommy have a back eye?”

I was making breakfast, still feeling a little blurry from a late night playtest the previous evening. “What?” I yawned. “No, no I don’t think so. Why would she have a black eye?”

“No,” he tugged on my pajama pantleg. ”A backeye, does she have a backeye?”

“No. They’re brown. The same as yours and mine.”

“A backeye,” he shouted. “Not a black eye, a backeye!”

“Huh?”

He reached back and fluffed up the hair on the back of his head. “You know, a back eye. A back eye.”

Ah. His mom has been maintaining the idea that she has eyes in the back of her head (click here for details). I handed him his plate of waffles. “Oh,” I said. “You mean eyes in the back of her head. You’ll have to ask her. I’m staying out of that.”

He stared at me for several heartbeats, but I was wearing my “inscrutable daddy” face. Finally, he let out a frustrated sigh and carried his plate to the table.