A picture"s worth at least 5 words...

When I first saw this photo, I nearly laughed myself into a pants-wetting asthma attack. 

Hi-freaking-LARIOUS, I thought!  *laugh choke wheeze piddle*  Oh my God oh my God!  That baby looks like Chris Farley with a page boy haircut and wearing a little pink dress!  PRICELESS!!!  Reincarnation!  Haaaahahahahahahahahaaaa!!!

Usually, if I find something funny, I rarely bother to look too deeply into it.  My brain registers “FUNNY!” and my mouth does the rest.   (I may or may not sometimes be something of an asshole.  In case you didn’t notice.)

This time, however, my conscience woke up long enough to drift in to my hilarity and rain all over my parade.  ”Ummm, Dani?” it said, “You are laughing your ASS OFF at someone’s BABY.  That poor woman probably thinks she has the most beautiful baby in the WORLD.  She most likely ordered an 11 x 13 portrait of that photo to hang PROMINENTLY in her living room so that she can SHOW THE WORLD how FABULOUSLY she reproduces.  The relatives no doubt all got professionally framed 8 x 10S, she probably ordered a gross of keychains with that exact picture in them, AND got t-shirts made that say “Princess” or something equally tragic, AND YOU’RE LAUGHING AT HER.  Also?  You are way too focused on the unibrow.  Stop obsessing so much about eyebrows.  It isn’t normal.”

CRAP.  I HATE it when my conscience shows up to harsh my mellow and ruin my good time.

Then I flashed back on a memory of the time, many many years ago, when my sister-in-law and I took our babies to get their pictures taken together.  We were sitting in the waiting room, smug in the knowledge that we had stunningly gorgeous children, when a woman walked in with twin girls.  She was returning her photos because she thought the pictures of her twins were ugly.  The really sad part?  Is that the pictures looked exactly like her children, only more so.  As she argued with the photographer about how the pictures looked NOTHING like her kids (which they did… as previously mentioned, they looked exactly like her kids, only touched up and glossy. You know how it is when you see a glamour shot of someone who is really homely and it’s horrible and pathetic and you think to yourself, “Oh my goodness, that’s the best she’s ever going to  look and SHE’S STILL UGLY…”  It was kind of like that) my sister-in-law looked at me and whispered, “Thank God we KNOW we have beautiful children!”

I nodded my head in agreement, thinking how fortunate I was that the odds of me having an ugly child were slim to none.  (I was young, slightly vain, and married a really good looking man.  I had the good sense to plan ahead, people.)  

Then we looked at each other and had the same thought at the exact same moment:  Wait… what if we don’t?  What if our children are actually hideously ugly and we don’t know it?  

*cue slasher music from shower scene in Psycho*

We were briefly horrified at the possibility.

Eventually we decided that we were both so shallow that if one or the other of us actually had an ugly baby, we’d know it (and talk about it behind each other’s backs with other members of the family).  We reassured each other than our children were rock stars, super models, and future heart throbs and pinky-swore that if an ugly baby were to make an appearance from either one of our womb’s we would tell the other, so as not to go through life unawares with an unattractive child.  Because that?  Would be the thoughtful thing to do:  “I love you so much that I feel compelled to tell you that your baby is hideous.  But I bet she grows up to have a really good personality…”

And seriously…  How precious were my boys?  Shea was 4 in this picture, Kacey 2, and Brennan had just turned 1.  They were so adorable it wasn’t even fair to other children.  

Shea, Kacey, and the Brennan Monster, circa 1990

Brennan, Kacey and Shea, circa 2011, at Kacey’s wedding

And just as I planned, they grew up to be the most handsome, brilliant, distinguished young men IN THE WORLD.  I mean, JUST LOOK AT THEM!  I am PROUD to hang this portrait in my house.  I may even get a keychain made, send 8 x 10s to the fam, and get a t-shirt printed up with this picture that says “Don’t hate us because we’re so beautiful.”  I’m pretty sure this will be my Christmas card this year.  

Thank GOODNESS I never have to worry about them taking a bad picture.