Dissecting the Baby

Just after M was born, when all I had had was a brief glimpse of her before she went off to the nursery and I went off to recovery, Kate said that she looked like me.  Since my recollection of her was that she was mostly composed of cheeks and a stubby little nose, with fine and downy brown hair on her head, I wasn't sure that this was exactly a complimentary observation.  When we got home, however, I found a picture of me at three or four days old - home from the hospital and dressed in the frilliest dress my grandmother could scare up on short notice - and admitted that the resemblance was fairly strong.  Over the last few weeks, one of the oddest experiences has been catching glimpses of other people in M's face.

For one thing, she got her father's ears, which is probably a good thing.*  I'm not meaning to cast aspersions on the ears that swim around in my family's gene pool.  In fact, they're probably very good at swimming, as they share an important characteristic with flippers - ability to displace large amounts of water.  When they do manage to attach themselves to the sides of heads, they have a tendency to do so at a somewhat rakish angle; they, no doubt, imagine that this gives a jaunty air to the head.  And to be fair, they have their uses.  One can tuck an immense amount of hair behind them.  I imagine, anyway.  I've never had an immense amount of hair to experiment with, but it seems likely that one could use them that way.  

A few days ago, when M was sleeping on my shoulder after a nice long meal, I looked over and nearly jumped out of my skin.  She suddenly looked like my brother.  And not my brother now, but my brother as a small child, which I really only have seen in pictures. 

 

It's the mouth, I think.  Although it may be the combination of the mouth and the cheeks.

* I'm not just talking about placement, you understand.  Leo has marginally asymmetrical ears - one of them is slightly squared off on top - and so does M.