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ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about two things: first, I was thinking that love is blind, and I was also thinking that no matter how hard I try, Jeff is still a better mother than I am.
The reason these things are on my mind is because of some boxes Jeff's mother sent us for safekeeping. The boxes are full of things that belonged to Jeff's grandmother, who died in May of 2005, when our son was 7 months old. She never got to see him. We had made plans to take him out to Louisiana that June, only to have her pass away two weeks before our scheduled trip. Among her possessions were a lot of photos of my son, most of them when he was a newborn or the Christmas just after, when he was almost two months old. I looked at these pictures of the fruit of my loins, my beloved offspring, and I heard myself say (out loud, no less), "My God, he was hideous."
A good mother would never have said this. In fact, when I brought him home I thought he was kind of cute. When I fell in love with him later, I was certain he was beautiful. But this is what I though was so perfect:
A round-headed skinny baby with hair that stood up in some places, lay flat against his head in other places, and that was so fine that you could see his scalp through it all over. I'm not saying he was uglier than any other newborn; I'm just saying that newborns are kind of ugly, in general. Some sort of hormonal hocus-pocus makes their parents adore them when they come into the world, the same way a mother bird loves her ugly, featherless hatchlings. To my mind, human babies don't have much advantage over baby birds when it comes to looks.
Before I was a mother, I remember listening to other mothers gush over the beauty of their offspring and biting my tongue because it would have been mean to point out that their children were, in fact, on the plainer side of average. Some of them, it hurt to look at. I was wise enough to see that love had made these women delusional. Little did I know that I would fall victim to this same spell when my son was born.
Of course, Jeff, being a better mother than I am, disagrees.
"He was adorable," he told me this morning when I showed him the photographic evidence of our son's homeliness. (I don't have that exact photo available in digital format; you'll have to take my word about how bad it looks.)
I looked at the picture closer and studied our son's misshapen little face with a quizzical grin under that helmet of long black gossamer that was his hair.
"He was goofy looking," I said, "Are you even looking at this?"
"It's just that picture. It's taken from a bad angle. He was beautiful."
"He was red and scowling and scrunchy," I said. "He looked just as bad as any other newborn."
"He was a beautiful newborn," his father-who-is-an-excellent mother retorted.
"Newborns aren't beautiful."
"Ours was."
I knew I wasn't going to win, so I decided to try to redeem myself in the eyes of the good parent, who was now scowling at me.
"He's beautiful now."
"He's always been beautiful."
"Okay," I agreed. Thank God he grew out of it, I thought.
Of course, I could be biased still. A few years down the road, when I have a beautiful 4 year old, I might look at this picture:
and think to myself, "He sure was an ugly toddler, wasn't he? Thank God he outgrew that."
Jeff, of course, will argue with me about this, like any good mother should.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
The reason these things are on my mind is because of some boxes Jeff's mother sent us for safekeeping. The boxes are full of things that belonged to Jeff's grandmother, who died in May of 2005, when our son was 7 months old. She never got to see him. We had made plans to take him out to Louisiana that June, only to have her pass away two weeks before our scheduled trip. Among her possessions were a lot of photos of my son, most of them when he was a newborn or the Christmas just after, when he was almost two months old. I looked at these pictures of the fruit of my loins, my beloved offspring, and I heard myself say (out loud, no less), "My God, he was hideous."
A good mother would never have said this. In fact, when I brought him home I thought he was kind of cute. When I fell in love with him later, I was certain he was beautiful. But this is what I though was so perfect:
A round-headed skinny baby with hair that stood up in some places, lay flat against his head in other places, and that was so fine that you could see his scalp through it all over. I'm not saying he was uglier than any other newborn; I'm just saying that newborns are kind of ugly, in general. Some sort of hormonal hocus-pocus makes their parents adore them when they come into the world, the same way a mother bird loves her ugly, featherless hatchlings. To my mind, human babies don't have much advantage over baby birds when it comes to looks.
Before I was a mother, I remember listening to other mothers gush over the beauty of their offspring and biting my tongue because it would have been mean to point out that their children were, in fact, on the plainer side of average. Some of them, it hurt to look at. I was wise enough to see that love had made these women delusional. Little did I know that I would fall victim to this same spell when my son was born.
Of course, Jeff, being a better mother than I am, disagrees.
"He was adorable," he told me this morning when I showed him the photographic evidence of our son's homeliness. (I don't have that exact photo available in digital format; you'll have to take my word about how bad it looks.)
I looked at the picture closer and studied our son's misshapen little face with a quizzical grin under that helmet of long black gossamer that was his hair.
"He was goofy looking," I said, "Are you even looking at this?"
"It's just that picture. It's taken from a bad angle. He was beautiful."
"He was red and scowling and scrunchy," I said. "He looked just as bad as any other newborn."
"He was a beautiful newborn," his father-who-is-an-excellent mother retorted.
"Newborns aren't beautiful."
"Ours was."
I knew I wasn't going to win, so I decided to try to redeem myself in the eyes of the good parent, who was now scowling at me.
"He's beautiful now."
"He's always been beautiful."
"Okay," I agreed. Thank God he grew out of it, I thought.
Of course, I could be biased still. A few years down the road, when I have a beautiful 4 year old, I might look at this picture:
and think to myself, "He sure was an ugly toddler, wasn't he? Thank God he outgrew that."
Jeff, of course, will argue with me about this, like any good mother should.
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Date: 2006-10-05 08:05 pm (UTC)I get the same feeling looking at pics of Rorie as an infant. How did I ever think that weird little thing was beautiful?!?!? And I did! I REALLY did!!!
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Date: 2006-10-05 08:19 pm (UTC)LOL!
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Date: 2006-10-05 08:44 pm (UTC)I'm just saying that my kid wasn't.
He is now, though.
^_^
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Date: 2006-10-06 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 08:42 pm (UTC)I thought he was kind of cute, but then I would take pictures of him and they didn't come out cute, so I told myself that the family curse of not being photogenic was passed down to the poor kid.
Looking at those old pictures, I'm amazed we even brought him home from the hospital. I'm glad we did -- thank Heaven we were delusional. He grew into our expectations.