Dirty and Mismatched

Recently I was going through family photos with my mother.  We were looking at old pictures of me and comparing them to my own Baby.  I saw a lot of similarities and a lot of differences.  

Some of our facial features and expressions are very similar.  Our hair is completely different.  Baby has light brown, gorgeous curls.  I had stick straight super blond hair.  I had more of a complacent look, while Baby is most certainly more mischievous.  You can see it in her eyes.   

One thing I noticed was how dirty I was in all the pictures.  Like, really dirty.  I was covered from head to toe in mud or sand or pudding, or something!  My face was splotched with some substance or other.  My hands and arms were caked with dark spots.  My clothes and diaper were spotted as well. 

I asked my mother why, and she said she thought I needed to explore and there was no harm in it.  This made me feel better about letting my own Baby get dirty.  Why does she need to be clean every second?  Why can't she feel the dirt between her fingertips and let it dribble down her shirt?  Why not? 

Another thing I noticed, especially when looking at childhood pictures of me was how silly my clothes were.  Or lack thereof ( I ran around in diapers a lot).  My mother said she never fought with us over our clothes, but let us have independence and dress ourselves.  It wasn't something that was worth a fight. 

I'm not sure how I feel about that one.  I'm sure at the time I felt liberated and independent.  Like I was a big girl. 

But my outfits were terrible!