"Don't you dare tell her that."

From family members to the tellers at the banks I run to every day for work, to the people at the post office, to the pharmacists next door and the ones across the Square, to the sweet ladies who take care of Vaught every day... People are constantly asking me "So, who does he look like?"

     I wasn't sure at first. By the time he was twenty-four hours old, I thought maybe he had my features: round cheeks, short nose, thin lips... By the time he was a few days old, I had completely changed my mind; Eric and I agreed that this child was way too pretty to resemble either of us. "Well, no offense to my husband," I said to someone, "but Vaught's much too beautiful to look like him." I said to someone else, "He doesn't look like me because I know I'm not that pretty." Everything from his bright, blue eyes to the perfect color of his skin was just remarkable. I mean it-- I still think Vaught is too perfect to look like either of us. When people ask me now, I just shrug and tell them I really don't know.

     It's funny how people are so quick to volunteer their thoughts on who your child favors most. We usually can't see ourselves in our children, but others can. My mother tells me that Vaught has many of Eric's expressions and his long fingers and feet. My aunts say he's got my smile. One of them says he looks a lot like my grandfather who passed away in 2008. No, I can't see myself in Vaught, but I can definitely look at other people's babies and know right away which parent they most resemble. I, too, am quick to say He looks just like you! Or She has your nose! And I never thought it was a big deal. I mean, the two of you made a baby together, so it's bound to look like one or both of you. I never thought it was "wrong" to tell someone who their baby looks like up until a few months ago...

     One of my friends had a baby. I'm actually friends with her husband, but since I wasn't on Facebook at the time, I was friends with her on Instagram to keep up with what they were doing and how the pregnancy was going. As I swooned over pictures of their precious baby girl (just a couple of weeks before having Vaught), I ran into my mom's office. "Look at picture's of so-and-so's baby! Look how sweet she is!" My mom and I sat there ooohing and awwwing over the pictures then I said, "She looks just like her daddy!"

My mom swiveled in her chair to look up at me and said, "Don't you dare tell her that."  

She said it so sternly (almost harshly), I asked, "Why?" That's when my mom told me that mothers, especially those of little girls, don't usually like to hear that their babies don't look like them.

     I had never been so confused in my life. I'd never heard that, and I suddenly thought back to the manyyyyy baby girls I'd seen in my life, where I was so quick to tell their mothers that they looked just like their fathers. I have always thought little girls looked like their daddies until they're a few years old. You could dress any infant girl up in blue, and she could easily pass for a boy all day long. I never considered that mothers might not like to hear that their baby girls don't look like them, even when they're a few hours or even a few months old.

     My nieces are now nine and six. The nine-year-old didn't begin to resemble my oldest sister until she was around four years old, and my six-year-old niece looks more and more like her dad as she gets older. I don't really know where I'm going with this post, other than to possibly spark the conversation... Are all women offended when told that their child (boy or girl) doesn't resemble them?

I'll be honest: I am not. At all. And I meant what I said; I think Vaught is just too beautiful to look like either of us. Even still, it doesn't bother me a bit when someone tells me he looks just like Eric,  but now I'm wondering if all the people who told me he looks like me just said that because they thought it'd make me happy... It sure as hell doesn't make a difference to me.

Thoughts??