Like father, like son

Robert and I both had our hair cut last night by our friend and hairdresser, Brian, who comes to our apartment. Afterwards, I asked Robert if he thought my hair was too short. He asked me to turn around, from side to side, then smiled. I said, "You're laughing! It's too short!"

"No," he said, "I'm smiling because you look like Julian. It's cute."

It's strange to look in the mirror and see my baby. I also see Julian when I look at my husband, who looks nothing like me. For months we had wondered what Julian would look like, being very racially mixed. We tried to picture him, his eye color, hair texture, but it was anyone's guess.

When he came out, he was so beautiful and so familiar. We would have been able to pick our baby out of a crowded room, though we had never seen him before. It was like we had known him forever. We were both struck by his subtle resemblance to both of us, yet he was his own little person, feisty and stubborn as he fought to be born and to survive for a short while so we could get to know him. He got that from us, too.