Sometimes I look at my kids and I wonder if they really came from me. A handful of people always said Hayley looked like me but I didn’t really see it, thinking she looked more like George. As for Breanna, I often joked that when I delivered, they pulled another baby out from under the bed and did a switch because she didn’t look like anyone.

Then on Sunday we went to see my parents. I pulled out my baby book because I wanted to see a few of my milestones in comparison to Hayley and Breanna. I found some pictures and was a little stunned to see that although my girls may not look like me right now, there’s a little bit of them in old pictures of me.

My poor mother must have been disappointed that she gave birth to an alien. Someone alert the Scientologists!

Luckily for her – and me! – I then morphed into an actual human child. In this picture at age two I can finally see a bit of Breanna in me.

(Actually, I had to turn that picture over to read whose name was on the back, because at first I was sure it had to be my sister. Which I guess reinforces what George’s dad said a year ago, when he looked at Breanna and said he thought she looked a bit like Amanda.)

But then in this picture, at 2 1/2 years, I see Hayley.

Then I found some dorky school pictures, grade one and grade two (ages 6 and 7) respectively.

(You know, you’d think the teacher would have maybe fixed my barrettes so that they were even first.)

(And that one just makes me shake my head sadly at the GINORMOUS glasses.)

So I guess I really am their mother and I didn’t just imagine all that pregnancy and labour.

Apropos of nothing to do with me (imagine that!), I also took a picture of my grandmother and her family way back when. That’s my grandmother right in the middle and that’s my mother as a little girl way down in the bottom corner. I love old pictures like this.

In other news, on Friday night I took the girls down the street to a magic show at the church. Hayley really enjoyed it. The magician invited all the kids to come and sit on the floor in front of him. Breanna obviously wasn’t interested in the show at all but she had fun running all around the room, peeking under the pews and chasing another kid around. Because I was following her around to make sure she didn’t tip over the holy water or sneak into the other side of the church, I didn’t see much of the show, but Hayley said it was fun. I kept peeking down the aisle every time I walked past to make sure she was okay and because I had just cut her hair that day I only recognized her because of her red shirt and her overalls.

She was really excited to get a purple balloon animal cat at intermission. Then, as we were getting our coats on to come home, she dropped it just as someone turned around and they stepped on it. There was a brief flood of tears but we went back in and the magician was nice enough to make her a new one, so that was a good save.

He had made a mouse for Breanna. As you can see, she was completely unimpressed.

Of course, then she started pulling it apart, and then she tried to bite it so I took it away, “lost” it, and then distracted her so that she wouldn’t keep looking for it. There’s a reason Breanna didn’t have any balloons at her birthday party, it was because she’s not getting any until she stops trying to eat them.

It was a pretty good weekend overall, between the magic show, Hayley getting to visit with George’s sister, and then seeing my parents. Compared to some other weekends where we’ve all just sort of looked at the walls, it was nice to have a few things to do.