Oh, and I was just looking up Annabel pictures from July '04 to remind myself of the size and physicality of a 3-month-old. I'd forgotten how damn cute that age was:

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Not that the current edition is any less adorable:

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I want to give a fictional baby his permanent eye color at three months, all the better to make his paternity glaringly obvious. Is that plausible, or is Annabel more the norm?

I was born with medium-brown eyes that slowly became dark brown. Not terribly common in white kids, but it happens.

Susan, I think you could get away with it. Some kids keep the same color from the get go and then there are one's like my kids whose eyes didn't settle into their final color until they were around four years old. Seriously, they both had bright blue eyes like my ex-husband until they were well past two years old. I would have sworn they were set for life. But somewhere in there they faded to gray and then added huge spots of hazel. Their eyes kind of remind me of opals. Both of 'em!

It may depend on the eye color. Green eyes, from what I've seen, take a lot longer to settle. I think mine were still changing until I was a teen, and I know they were still blue at six months.

From what I've read at baby forums and in books, most will change by six months, some will take longer, and the more subtle the shift, the longer the change.

I just looked at good close-ups of Eve's eyes at 3 months. They're the same now - hers are dark blue.

I think you can get away with it, Susan. Ben's were a very dark blue at first, but settled into his (green/gray/brown) hazel fairly soon. Julia on the other hand, had brilliant blue eyes, that went to an almost brown hazel, at eighteen months. Chris had blue, blue eyes until he was four. They're starting to get more green/gray to them now, but you can still say he's blue eyed. Mine did much what Plei's did, although the results weren't so green. I have rings of different color, more than anything else.

~ma to Beast and Jilli and Pete

I have poor parenting memory. I don't know when the kids eye color established.

For the record, if I haven't said so recently enough, I am grateful for all of you during these emotionally draining times. Just skimming the nattering and bitching has soothed my fragile soul this week. Thank you.

Katerina Bee sent me an email asking that I keep her in the loop about the gift for -t. I sent her an email saying I would, but I got an automated "you are spam; go away" response. which makes it hard to do so.

Katerina, if you see this, can you anti-spam me? If anyone else has a better address for her, could you send it to me?

Thanks

Perkins, if you need help w/Paypal, let me know (or if you don't want to deal with it at all -- I've done the Paypal thing for other Buffista collections and I can do this one too if needed).

OK, I'll go with the early-changing eyes for the baby in the book--the color in question is brown, but an unusual clear amber-whisky sort of hue.