Jake, my first baby, was jaundiced. I was 24 and clueless, and he looked perfect because it was a C-section, so no lumps or angry red marks or pointy head. I said to the nurse, "He's so beautiful -- all golden! Like a little surfer baby!" And she looked at me like I had two heads and said, "Honey, that's jaundice."

The little black S&M masks they have to wear under the lights are so weird.

Tep, you've seen Joanna. Her hair is reddish chestnut, and it's perfectly straight. She kept the grey-green eyes and the winged brows, and she's still olive skinned.

She came out with raven curls to her shoulders. If she hadn't been that bizarre colour, she'd have been gorgeous.

With the colour? Weird.

Her skin betrays her anew every morning. She touches her cheek with tentative, hopeful fingers, and raises her eyes to the mirror.

No, still the same. The days outside don't make the difference, instead reddening streaks into her hair, bleaching the down on her arms.

She wants to look like her parents, not a throwback to raping owners. She wants to look like her heroes, like the ancestors that would claim her, like the dusty children in bright strange prints that people her books.

Chocolate, mahogany, oiled ebony glinting in the sun.

No, still the same.

Redbone, blue veined, high yellow.

She came out with raven curls to her shoulders. If she hadn't been that bizarre colour, she'd have been gorgeous.

I don't doubt it.

I was a freaky little round-headed baby, and I didn't cry when I came out, which made Mom think I was stillborn.

I am in all ways totally different from newborn!me. Blonde, blue-eyed, china-doll complexion, and rather too chatty for my own good. Heh.

ita, that's stunning.

ETA: In relation to the Tep/Deb conversation, I was a blue-eyed brunette when I was born.

like the dusty children in bright strange prints that people her books.

That? Is a gorgeous, gorgeous line.

I didn't cry when I came out, which made Mom think I was stillborn.

Jo didn't cry either. She came out with hiccoughs.

Which still floors me. How the hell can you have hiccoughs, when you haven't eaten anything, like, well, EVER?

Also with the "Dang, ita, that was good."

And on the freaky coloration shift tip, my beloved wife is half Armenian, with attendant Mediterranean coloring, olive skin, dark brown eyes and thick curly dark hair. Until she hit puberty, she had straight reddish auburn hair , light brown eyes and pale skin. The resulting difference between her childhood pictures and her current appearance has led to my occasionally suggesting that all her childhood memories are actually implants and that that's some other kid in those pictures.

Oddly, she seems reluctant to embrace this possibility.

I was an ugly baby, sufficiently so that when the curse broke, I thought that the tolerable pictures were of some other kid.

My sister, obviously, was unutterably gorgeous.