Baby photos comparison, oh that glint!

In tracking down a photo of myself in response to a question posed in the Forum by Raye, "What did you look like as a kid?", I got sucked in to my massive photo album collection developed before the purchase of my digital camera (now I have a 40GB external hard drive to accommodate my digital photography era and it thankfully takes up a lot less space).

Sorting through my photo collection (starting from my college days with only a smattering of me as a child) requires going through many, many books of all shapes and sizes (and not labeled or in any sort of order because that's been on my 'to do' list for more than a decade) to find the photo I was looking for.

But as many things in life happen, it was the journey rather than the result that turned out to be the most enjoyable, which I'll get to in a minute.

First I'll get the response photos out of the way. Below are a couple of photos of myself as a toddler and preschooler. For those who know me, you'll realize the squinty-eyed thing hasn't really changed much over the decades.





While looking for these photos though I ran across Fino's baby album. He has very few photos of himself as a child (he's child #5 in a family of 6) but he has a few keepers. There would likely be a homicide at my house if I ever posted the high school photo of him with shoulder length hair (he had a massive head of wavy hair as a teen in the 80s) that the girls break out into full belly laughs whenever they see (OK, it puts on a smile on my face too but I try to control myself because I've got my share of awkward teen pics in my album). But there are a couple of him as a peanut that remind me of L. I have photos of both of them with a certain glint in their eye that is identical. That little rebel rousing gene that lets you know they're creative thinkers and not ones to sit by and let something pass by without stirring up the pot just to see what happens.





Yes L.'s coloring might be closer to mine than her dad's (which is more obvious in person) but when it comes to expressions/mannerisms/personality traits, she's got a lot of him in her (and a bit of my brother who has his own special spunk too). It was an enjoyable journey down memory lane and confirmation about something I had always thought but hadn't fully recognized until comparing these photos.

Below is a picture of G. as a toddler just so she doesn't feel left out of this baby picture thing. I'm grateful now to have marked the girls' names on the back of photos because with the passing years I now see what everyone else had told me at the time. The girls really did look a lot alike when they were little.



And if you haven't check out the blogger baby photo albums yet, take a look. Then, upload one of your own.