Confession from a Houston Mom

My daughter doesn't look a thing like me.

I used to think this would be horrible. No, it's not because I think I'm a beauty queen in the making. As soon as I became pregnant, I wondered what my little one would look like. I repeatedly told my husband that I was going to be mad if our daughter didn't look a thing like me. "Not as mad as she's going to be," my husband laughed, softly touching his thinning red hair.

I looked at one of my friends and her son, who is a spitting image of his father. "How unfair. The mom did all the work!" I said. I really wanted my child to look as if we belonged together. A total stranger would look at us and never wonder where my daughter came from. My hair, my nose, my smile... just in a smaller size. But that's not how things worked out.

Instead, my 17 month old looks remarkably like my mother-in-law! I know. It should make me mad. It's enough to make you see red. But after getting to know my daughter for a year and a half, I've come to realize something. When people see us playing "Kissing Tiger" and having a tickle fest, no one wonders whose child she is. When I'm laughing and pulling the wagon down the street while my daughter is sweetly waving to every man, woman, child and animal on our way, nobody comments that she doesn't look like me. She is her own person and I couldn't be happier. Things have a way of working out for the best. It's another lesson my young daughter taught me.

Until the next nap time...