Sometimes the genes are better than others

You know, sometimes there are moments when you look at your children and you have a flash of recognition.  It’s a moment of clarity that your child shares all the DNA before them.  My brother looks just like our father and my nephew – well, it’s really amazing how much that boy looks like his grandfather and great grandfather.  The four of them have the same face – long and strong boned.  I got the cleft in the chin – yea for me.

I had a really powerful moment like that right after Sassy was born.  She was very early – 7 1/2 weeks early and thus was very tiny at 3lb 9oz.  She spent the first month of her life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the NICU for the uninitiated.  Yes she was beautiful, but she was so tiny and so thin – she didn’t look like anyone I knew.  Don’t all new parents look down into tiny faces and think, “You have your father’s eyes” or “She has her mother’s nose”.  I didn’t see that.  Not then, and I thought I was missing out on something.

Holding Daddy's Hand. This is one of my favorite pictures of all time

But after Sassy was about ten days old, I had an epiphany.  I was in the bathroom washing my hands, preparing to head off to a day at the NICU when it hit like a ton of bricks.  Her tiny, tiny hands were just exactly like mine.  The shape, the large knuckles, everything.  It was a really extraordinary moment for me as a brand new Mommy.  She was really and truly mine and all of her family before her.

I’m going somewhere with this, I promise you. 

We had so much to do today: grocery shopping and a ton of christmas shopping.  Sassy was ready early.  She was wearing a beautiful sun dress.  It’s 80 degrees out here in the desert so, ridiculously, a sundress is entirely appropriate.  But no one had seen The Bandit for a while.  We kept hollaring for him to come out so we could go.

This is a Project Runway task gone horribly awry

The minute he did, My Honey nailed it.  “Oh dear God, he looks exactly like his Poppa.”

Here is his look. 

He came up with it all on his own.  Believe me, no one else is willing to claim any part of it.  But I’ll tell you, he worked this look all day.

We call it “Lumberjack Surfer”.  We did insist he lose the tie.