Faces...

Faces are unique things.  They are our ‘calling card’ so to speak.  Everyone has their own face, and no matter how much we try, each face has a difference.  Even identical twins, whose features may be exact will still have some slight difference, even if it is only the way they hold their mouth, wrinkle their nose….just something that separates them from everyone else.

For the most part, I have a knack for remembering faces of people I encounter, even briefly.  Like most people, I know the faces of those I love better than those met briefly.  I know the faces of my parents and my husband very well.  I even know the faces of various pets we have had/have.  I remember the faces of my grandparents, various aunts and uncles, although they are frozen in time to the last time I saw them. 

With the arrival of the munchkins, I had new faces to learn.  Davian came first…with his dark brown eyes peering around him in wonder.  I remember his tentative smile when he looked at me, almost as if he was saying “Hi there, can we be friends?”  I remember the look on his face when he met the hubby, pure enchantment.  It was clear that he thought “this is someone I can like.”  I also remember his look of delight when we fed him bananas and mandarin oranges, the thrill when Lucy the dog came up to snuffle him carefully, and his outburst of giggles when Mosely the cat came up and tickled him with his whiskers. 

As the weeks went on I watched his tiny face change from one of guarded wonder to open delight and fascination of the world around him.  I saw his face scrunch up in pain; his eyes widen with fear and uncertainty, and then change into expressions of relief, reassurance, and trust.  As he grew he began to mimic expressions of the hubby as well as my own. 

Alivia’s arrival was different.  Being a newborn, I got to see her tiny face and watch it grow from the beginning.  Having seen pictures of Davian as a newborn and before he came to us, it was amazing to me how much she looked like him.  A friend commented that she was basically ‘Davian in a dress’.  I found it interesting to watch to see the changes on her face begin to echo the changes of his. 

At about two, she began to evolve in her own direction.  Although the features were still the same, her expressions were more of my own.   A co-worker commented that Alivia looks like me, even though she is not my biological child.  “It’s her expressions” she declared.  And it is. 

It is funny how closely the children watch us to see how we react to things.  If we laugh at something – they laugh.  If we cry at something – they cry.  It’s even funnier to see how they adapt these things for their own use.  Alivia was taking off my shoe then putting it back on my foot.  She was very serious about the whole thing, carefully studying both the shoe and my foot, methodically working out the placement of where the shoe should go and was it firmly on my foot.  At one point she accidentally scratched my leg, causing me to say “ouch”.  She immediately stopped, placed a look of what she clearly thought was concern on her face.  “You ok mommy?” she asked, patting my leg.  A smile of relief lit up her little face when I replied that yes, I was ok.  “Ok, good” she said, patting my leg again. 

As both children grow, I carefully make a mental catalogue of their faces.  I know the two tiny scars on Davian’s face, one by his eyebrow, the other on his cheek bone.  I know the tiny freckle on Alivia’s forehead and the elvish point of one of her ears.  I know their lovey smiles, their delighted smiles, their sad faces, their upset faces, and their mad faces.  I know their sleepy looks, their excited looks, and their deliriously overjoyed looks.  These are the faces I will always remember, even when their little baby faces have moved on into more adult ones.  But I think my most favorite of faces is the first time I laid eyes on both of them…for it was those faces that let me know we were meant to be together.