Funny in the Mirror

Tonight we dined out, at an elegant establishment offering free kids meals for members of the Dartmouth athletics kids’ fan club. (Imagine a non-chain Olive Garden.) Afterwards, Rory and Lily stood gazing into a full length mirror together, set at a perfect height for them to admire their little faces, and Lily began to laugh.

Rory looks funny in the mirror! Why does she?
I didn’t see anything, so I shrugged and went back to trying to persuade Rory to put her legs into her pull-up, figuring Lily had a fun-house angle on Rory somehow.
But she does, Lily insisted. Look! Look at her nose, it’s all twisted!

All these months, all those pictures, and it took looking in a mirror together for Lily to see Rory’s crooked little nose.

But that’s just her nose, sweetie, I said, and Rory looked hurt and a little anxious and I added, her cute little button nose, and gave it a poke and a kiss, and we all giggled, but Lily said, why? why is one side higher than the other?

I reminded Lily about Rory’s cleft lip–we’ve seen pictures–and Lily remembered another little boy in Rory’s photo album that we’d seen Skyping with the family, too. Like Caleb?

Yes, only not so much, and if she doesn’t like her nose when she gets older, Harper’s daddy can fix it, but I think it’s a wonderful nose.

But how will he fix it?

I am thinking I probably should have left that last bit out, but I keep rolling. She could have surgery, I say, but it’s a WONDERFUL NOSE.

And so it is. Lily got distracted at that point, and nothing more was said–but I still can’t believe it took all this time, and a mirror, for her to comment! There is something about Rory that makes you look at everything else first–so much of her is in her personality and her words and her sheer physical being that any one feature can’t compete.

I think she’ll rock her funky little nose, but if not, we’ll sort it out for her. First dentist appt in the am–that should be interesting!


One Response to “Funny in the Mirror”

  1. Paula says:

    Good luck at the dentist. That was not a fun experience for us. Family dentist referred us to pediatric dentist in Duxbury. Nice woman but listening to her gave me a headache (made me wonder if she always talks like she’s on saccharine overload). My restraint training came in handy getting Jess’s tooth filled. Thankfully each visit’s gotten easier.