Do You Say This On Your Own, Or Do Others Say This About Me?
I, as I have learned any good parent should do, presumptuously think everyone wants to see pictures of my baby. As such I sent out a birth announcement (of sorts) to my department. Of course I attached a photo. Following that, more than one person has said she is the cutest baby they have ever seen. So cute, in fact, that she couldn't possibly be my child.
Two things about that:
1.) Most everyone says that about most people's babies without realizing that only one baby in the world could actually be the cutest baby they have ever seen. That's just the way the superlative form of an adjective works. So I understand that other people's comments about the cuteness of a baby, even my baby, must be understood in light of our general misuse of language.
2.) I think she is the cutest baby I have ever seen but also realize that personal commitment and passion color truth.
That said, a coworker of mine, apropos only to my sending out the email birth announcement, told me he thought of my baby while on his way to work one morning because of mention of a Beautiful Baby Contest on the radio. Well actually, it's on the internets but conducted by a radio station so he heard about it on the radio.
How's that for an unsolicited compliment, or better, window into THE TRUTH?
So I entered The Lovely Elizabeth into a baby contest. This is the picture I used.
It really is the greatest use of photographic technology ever.
Anybody that wanted to vote for her could. You would see she is contestant 46 in the D-F category. You would also see that Dylan is the new David.*
What could be more true than the results of a series of tubes contest judged by Tori Spelling and people who listen to Soft Adult Contemporary pop or respond to email forwards from family members telling them to vote for their baby?**
* That's just for the Ds. Overall, Jacob is actually the new Michael.
** That's just begging for a Venn diagram.
4 comments:
Next time let me know when you are entering your daughter into a beauty contest so I can airbrush it up. Sometimes even the cutest thing I have ever seen can use a leg up.
I would have also drawn on eyebrows as homage to little Elizabeth's heritage.
If you mean pencilling in eyebrows a la a wispy chola style then, yes, that is an homage to her ancestry. If you mean draw them in to give her the appearance of any eyebrows at all, then you may be mistaken. Her Latin@ ancestry wouldn't have it and her Whighte Payple ancestors aren't that hairy.
When did Delilah and Elias become such common names?
On another tangential note, I'm wondering if this has happened to you. After the births of both of my children, there was an extended period when no other babies actually looked cute to me. Unfortunately, this coincided with the births of several of my friends' children and so I had to pretend that I thought they were cute. Fortunately, once my children were out of their respective baby phases, my ability to recognize cuteness in other people's children returned. I think this is one of the ways nature ensures survival of the species - each parent wants to care most desperately for her own baby. Just wondering.
I'm sure that years... maybe months from now I'll look at this time and say, "Wow she really looks a lot like a frog."
I think your hypothesis about protective cuteness is right on the mark.
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