Us White Folk

When we first brought Kiki home from the hospital, she was nut brown. Now Kipp and I are both fish-belly white, so I remember assuring everybody that she really WAS Kipp's daughter, honest (I was sleep-deprived and paranoid). Kipp's mom laughed at me and said they had Native American in their ancestry (her grandma was full-blooded Cherokee, I believe), so apparently Kiki had just inherited that coloring and it skipped a couple of generations (Sue is similarly fair-skinned, blonde and blue-eyed.)

A few months later, the brown faded. We figured later her lovely coloring must have been because of the jaundice and the 5 days under a bili light (her own private sun lamp!). And it was a shame that she was fish-belly white like her parents. (sigh).

So the other day I was watching her play, and it suddenly occurred to me that she was again darker than either her father and me. Not as strikingly darker like her first days at home, but definitely there is color in her skin that we don't have.

I'm not sure where it came from, unless she's getting sun from riding around in the car. In which case, I would think it would be fairly localized, but it's not. And the only time she's ever been outside playing, I've fairly dosed her in sunscreen (well, except for once, but that was MONTHS ago.)

Well, it's a mystery, but I'm not complaining. She's positively gorgeous with those blue eyes and that slightly tanned skin. I've always been hoping that her hair would turn white-blonde like Kipp's was as a toddler (and my Grandma's and my Dad's), but she apparently either doesn't have the genes for that or not enough sun exposure. Her hair is much lighter than it was when she was born; it's light brown now, where it was black before. But not white-blonde (sigh).

Tomorrow we go swimming. I'm all prepared with a toddler floatie thingie, wax for her ears, Little Swimmers, and a huuuuuuge tube of sunscreen. We'll see if she gets any more Hollywood Star tanned after that!

Oh, I have sun goggles for her too. And a hat. Hee.... I need to get pics of this, obviously.