Dear Ittybit,

You don't mind hanging out with dad, but you prefer activities that don't involve grease and grime.

You're looking more and more grown up lately.

You've started asking me to check your face for remnants of food or other smudges. "Is anything on my face? Are you sure?"

The fight over combing/washing/taming your hair is over. You find the brush and you sit as still as I wrestle snarls and snags. I imagine soon you won't need my help to make your hair silky and smooth.

How many times had you gone to school last year with errant hair and a breakfast-marked face?

I didn't fight you to look presentable. We aren't really presentable people.

But you are noticing now. Determining not to look disheveled.

I see you studying your face in the mirror. Looking for imperfections.

People are starting to tell me that you and I look a lot alike. She is like your Mini Me, they say.

I recoil a little, and tell them I don't see it. I remember thinking how I reacted when I was a teenager and people told me I looked like my mother. I didn't want to see it. I was NOT my mother.

I know that in too few years, she won't smile when someone makes the comparison.

But it's impossible not to feel humbled inside. And it puts the flaws you hold as self evident when someone tells you your daughter, who is beautiful, looks just like you.



With love and European kisses,

Mommy