He has your eyes!

Ever since my first son was born, people have dissected his face--explaining the lineage of each of his features. "He has David's eyes!" they would exclaim. "Ooh, I think he has your mouth!" Possibly the strangest comment came from one of David's co-workers, who said, "Well, I was trying to figure out whose nose he has, but you guys have the same nose."

Uhhh...what, now? We have the same nose? Well, that's just weird. I mean, what do you even say to this person? I look at my husband's nose, and I mean, I think he's an attractive guy, but seriously? That is NOT what my nose looks like!

When a baby is born, people can be so excited to claim or assign credit for his/her features, they can be completely absurd. When my cousin C. (Or maybe K? Yeah, I think so.) saw Monkey for the first time, she announced to the whole room full of relatives, "Look at that! He's definitely got the (Lissnkids' Step-Father's Lastname) eyes! There was a little silence as everyone in the room (pretty much the whole step-side family, since it was at my grandma's funeral) tried to work that one out. Hmmm. My step-father leaned over, a sparkle in his blue eyes, and whispered, "Neat trick, hey?"

Sometimes I can see the resemblance to ourselves in our children. Both the boys have moments when they look like my husband, for sure. One friend insists that Monkey looks just like me. It's hard for me to see this, maybe because my mental image of myself is probably not exactly reality. More often than the physical features, I recognize our personalities or vocal cadences, phrases snatched from our vocabularies, the way Jabberwock's fists clench when he's upset.

Now, there are some who say that my boys' bull-headed and stubborn sides come from me, but I am not buying that. Clearly, this is a function of a genetic anomaly.