It's week five, and we have officially entered the ugly phase of infancy. My doting mother denies this, "No no, she's beautiful!" I can't tell if she's a compulsive liar or if she's just looking at my daughter through her "Nana goggles," but I'll be the first to admit it: Maeve is going through the ugly newborn phase. Cole went through it, and so do most babies.
You know the phase: it's the time when they get their baby acne, and cradle cap, and they can't quite hold their heads up so they always look drunk. There is constantly a little pool of spittle in the corner of their mouths, and their eyes can't focus 100% so they're constantly cross-eyed. I'm sure at 5 weeks old even Audrey Hepburn looked like a drunk old man.
So instead of trying to deny the fact that my daughter is going through this phase, I've embraced it wholeheartedly. She has recently lost all of the hair on top of her head, so I've started calling her Mr. Burns (with absolute love and affection, of course). I think she likes it...
Although, I'll admit to you that I've deleted a few photos where she has one too many chins (I draw the line at five). I don't want to totally horrify my daughter when she looks back on baby photos of herself. But I should probably keep a few around for bribing material in her self-conscious teen years (this is parenting advice at its best people!)
"No Maeve, you can't go to that party with that older boy, or I'll post this (insert embarrassing photo) to your virtual-friend-conversing-photo-sharing platform (that will likely exist in 3D and include some sort of time-travelling element)." Yes, I do believe technology will develop that quickly. Yes, I'm 80.
Alright, someone is crying, I better go.
She probably just caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror...
(NOTE: Maeve, if your future-self is reading this, please know that I'm just kidding and I can already see how incredibly beautiful you are, despite the baby acne and temporary double chin. Unfortunately for you, being my daughter means being subjected to a certain amount of teasing. I hope you're okay with that. I promise to divide the teasing equally between you and your brother. xoxo, Mom)
If you'd like to read more about my commentary on ugly babies, check out this blog post I wrote before Maeve was born. And on the contrary, you can read about how my first ugly baby turned out to be pretty gorgeous...
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