My friend from Indiana was back for the week-end so we planned a get together today. It wasn’t fancy. We ordered pizza and salad and my friend A brought cookies. Though this will upset my mother’s sense of presentation, we had a simple lunch with plastic plates and forks. I know it lacks style, but the cleanup process only took a couple of minutes. The inventor of plastic plates is my hero.

I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, but two of my friends, A and J, had babies within the last two months. It is the third child for both of them. A had a baby boy and J had a baby girl. I enjoy their babies…mostly because they go home and I don’t have to worry about midnight feedings, colic and sibling rivalry.

So, now that both babies are a little older and their features are starting to be more defined, I found myself searching their faces to see who they looked more like. Do they look more like mommy or daddy? Are they a mix of both parents? Do they look like one of their siblings? A’s baby boy looks a little bit like his older brother around the eyes. J’s little girl is still too little to be sure, but she doesn’t look like either of her siblings did when they were babies.

I always find it amusing when people search for those similarities when they meet a family with a Korean adoptee. Sometimes people would comment that I looked like one parent or another. You want to say, “yep, that’s some recessive gene.”

I can laugh and make jokes about it because it never really bothered me and my son could lie if he wanted to. After all, the funny thing about my situation is that my son actually does share some of my features. However, it’s not so funny for other Korean adoptees. I read from one (and I can’t remember who) about searching faces for people that looked like her and wondering if they were related. She was searching for that connection. She wanted to find the person who shared her face so that someone could say, “she has your eyes.”

I have to admit that when I hold my friend C’s little boy and look into his big blue eyes…I think, “you look just like your Daddy.” Sometimes, right after that thought, I think, “and I wonder who I look like.” But then I remember that I am like my mother. I don’t have red hair or the fine bone structure that my mother has, but I move like my mother, talk like my mother and (shhh) I even sound like my mother when I’m being the mommy.

If you would like to comment, but not on this site, please e-mail me at adoptkoreablog@adoptionmail.com.