9.19.2012

180 seconds.

From the day my Princess was born, everyone who met her and saw her little face said "she looks just like her daddy". Which is lovely and scary all at once. Lovely, because, "AWWWWW... what a sweet thing to say" and Scary because Mr. F. would not make an attractive female. Just sayin.

It is with relief I can say that she has not grown to be a hairy, large, Viking-esque young woman. *whew* (Not that I wish to insult hairy, large, Viking-esque women. Not at all. You go girl. *eeep*) What people were referring to was many of the Nordic traits she inherited from that side of the family. Broad cheeks, sloped nose, small mouth... things which look lovely and feminine on her, thankfully. **Picture removed because I was alerted that some creepy person found this post by searching "women with small mouths". Fricken creep.** Things which also make her look "not like me".



And so, I guess as she has grown -- while I've always seen her as MINE -- I rarely see parts of "me" in her. To be certain, from time to time, someone will comment that she looks like me or reminds them of me. But if I'm honest, it's not something I've ever seen for myself and I find myself saying in disbelief, "really!?".

Which is why I was surprised -- shocked, even -- a few weeks ago.

The Princess and her girlfriends will often make entertaining little video shorts. I'm sure they have dreams of youtube stardom except that some grouchy Mum won't let them post videos online. Stupid grouchy mum.

This particular video was actually pretty hilarious and starred the Princess as a stereotype. She was wearing a short wig and acting her part rather flawlessly, complete with accent -- this kid has pretty terrific comedic timing (sigh, likely something else from her father). But while my outer self was busy laughing and enjoying the show, my inner self was staring slack-jawed at the little playback screen.

It was like watching myself.

So many little mannerisms and facial expressions. Her eyes. Even her voice and speech.

Holy sh!#.

I found myself actually holding back tears while looking back and forth from this screen to her face... crazy stuff, this. I had never, ever seen this before. Had never realized how deeply this would touch me.

A very profound 3 minutes, my friends. 3 minutes that I am super thankful for.

4 comments:

Craig said...

Facially, our kids are mostly a pretty generic blend of the two of us. 5M looks a lot like me; 3M looks like one of Jen's brothers, 4M looks like another one. Lots of folks are certain that 1F and 6F look just like Jen, but I haven't seen it.

3M has his days when his mannerisms are utterly indistinguishable from yet another of Jen's brothers, like he's channeling him, almost. 7M is temperamentally a lot like me.

So, you know, ther's a little bit of everything, spread across our eight kids. And you're right - when I see it, It's utterly amazing. . .

Anonymous said...

Wow, seriously? Is that the young-un I remembered from way back when we met or is that really a photo of you? I see lots and lots of you there my dear, but man oh man she can't be that growed up .... wow.

Bijoux said...

Everyone always says how much my oldest looks like me, but I rarely see it, as she's a strawberry blonde and I have dark brown hair. I remember going to preview her senior pictures and there was a pose that blew me away. Was my exact pose and expression of my own senior picture. It freaked me out!

Love your photos.....you are both adorable!

Anonymous said...

Wow, sorry you had to take the pic down over a creeper ..... that's just wrong that you had to do that. What a sad sorry world we sometimes live in.

Sorry you had to do that.