Resemblance

Nearly everyone who sees my son immediately remarks how he looks like his dad.  I don’t see it as much, but I believe that most people do.  My daughter, on the other hand… she’s a mystery.  If she didn’t look so much like her ultrasound photos, I might wonder if they switched her with someone else’s kid.  My mom sometimes thinks she looks like M’s sister, and M decided the other day that she bears some resemblance to his mom.  Some people try to be nice and suggest she looks like me, but I’m not so sure.  I don’t think it’s hard to believe we’re related, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say she bears any kind of striking resemblance to her mother.  See for yourself, since I was at my dad’s house and could scan old pictures.  Here’s one of me as a baby, I’m going to guess somewhere around 8-10 months old:

Rebecca, about 9 months old:

I just don’t know.  I mean, yeah, we don’t look completely un-alike.  But no spitting image here.

On the other hand, it would appear that I do bear a striking resemblance to… myself.  I have Daniel to vouch for the fact that I look fundamentally the same as I did nearly two decades ago.  My proof? There’s a big portrait in my dad’s living room of me, my brother, and my dad.  I’m going to place it somewhere around 1992, what with my unfortunate combination of bangs, braces, and tight-rolled blue pants with white socks and blue loafers.  (Pre-flannel shirts and birkenstocks.)  Well, Daniel took one look at that picture and declared: “Mah-mee!”

Witness, 1992 in all of my eighth-grade glory (my apologies, and not just for the pants, it’s a photo of a photo in a dark room):

Versus 2008, a little older and wider, but basically the same:

Some things pretty much never change.  My looks, for the most part, among them.  I’ve gained and lost weight, grown and cut my hair, and certainly gotten older.  But while some people seem to continually look different, I’m pretty much always recognizable.