My college roommate and I used to make up a lot of nicknames for people. This probably happened because we would talk about people we only knew tangentially, and often we weren't sure what their names were. So we made up names for them. One freshman reminded us of the little red-haired girl who was the object of Charlie Brown's affections, so that became her nickname. Another guy in our physics class, or maybe it was our math class, became "pole" after a particular relativity word problem we had worked on. Reasons for that are lost to me now, but we named his girlfriend "barn" after that same problem.
And then there was Zero. One night, my roommate and I decided to start ranking people on an attractiveness scale of 0 to 100. This seems like a good idea when you're, like, 19. We realized that the scale would be meaningless without defining what would count as 100 and what would count as 0. When it came time to identify somebody who would rank as 0, I said "you know that guy in our linear algebra class? The one who always puts the date in the upper right hand corner of his paper when he takes notes, and then makes a 3-d box around the date?" She knew exactly who I was talking about. This guy always wore highwater slacks that were a size too small. He would pair them with outdated short-sleeved shirts, which he would tuck in and then tie the whole ensemble together with a striped cloth belt, the kind with a buckle that looks like an airplane seatbelt buckle. Those pants rested somewhere right below his ribcage. He would wear white gym socks and old tennis shoes, and he had enormous glasses, and I could never figure out if he was wearing a beard, or if he just hadn't shaved in a couple of weeks. "That guy," I said. "He would be the zero."
The unfortunate nickname stuck. For a couple of years we referred to him as zero, never figuring out his actual name. We saw him in various math lectures here and there, but never really intersected with him. Then, when I was a senior, a bunch of friends of mine were housed in a suite on campus, and one of the suitemembers was that guy! Zero! As I got to know him, I found out that he was a really nice guy. He was exceptionally smart, had a great sense of humor, and was fun to be around. He loved to play games, as did all of my nerdy male math friends, and we would sit around for hours playing cards. Of course as I got to know him as an actual person, he ceased to be "zero". He was no longer funny looking, he was just a nice guy who was fun to have around. We stayed in touch for years after college, he came to my wedding, and I still get Christmas cards from him.
This whole story reminds me of Milo a little bit. The thing is, when I was pregnant, I worried a little bit that we would end up having funny-looking babies. Even worse, what if we had funny-looking babies and we were too smitten to realize that they were funny looking?
When Milo and Nora were born, I didn't exactly think they were beautiful. I thought they looked like most newborns, sort of wrinkly and angry looking. But Milo especially seemed kind of funny looking. He had these huge eyes, and he reminded me of E.T. His forehead was constantly wrinkled, in fact his whole face was wrinkled, and red, and he looked like an old man. He would make these bizarre faces and only open one eye. I thought, "well, I guess we did produce a pretty funny-looking baby." I didn't seem to have any of those smitten blinders on at all.
Now 4 months later I think he's strikingly beautiful. I know that most of that is probably because I have gotten to know Milo, and I like who he is. He's a neat little baby with a great personality, and his face just lights up when he smiles. He and Nora look so different, but I think that they're both really cute in their own ways. And a big part of me realizes that I've lost all objectivity about them. Maybe Milo is more like Zero, maybe he is funny looking, but I just don't see it anymore because I like him so much. Or maybe he's not, and he's just grown into his natural cute babyness, and it simply took a while. I don't care either way, of course. But if you're secretly thinking that Milo and Nora are funny looking, that's okay. Don't tell me, because I won't believe you, and I'll just wait until you get to know them better, at which point you'll think they are beautiful too.
(I do, however, look forward to the day when they are no longer super bald).
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