Then and Now

I've got a picture of my eldest, aged four months, sitting in her grandfather's arms. She is grinning up at him in a beguiling way, her face radiating perfect unstudied innocence. Her face is also just the tiniest bit dirty (I suspect that she is wearing part of her lunch on her cheeks and her grandfather has not realized this), and she is clapping her tiny hands, which look wet, as though she has been chewing on her fingers, and the clothes she is wearing are a mess. Her hair looks like it hasn't been brushed in the past twenty-four hours. In short, she is a rather slimy, ungroomed, mucky pup. But oh, what a beauty.

Fast forward sixteen years. My eldest is getting ready to go to work, a process that can take up to two hours, especially when there is anything like physics or chemistry homework to be done or it is her turn to do the dishes. Her thick, bushy hair has been ironed to an unnatural metallic smoothness, her beautiful eyebrows have been plucked to a ridiculously thin line. She has done things to her face that I wish she had not done (though I thank God that she has thus far restricted her piercings to her ear lobes), and her lips are glossy with fruity stuff that she seems compelled to refresh every thirty minutes. She is wearing clothes that make me want to run up to her and cover her in a burqua, and shoes that I cannot believe are comfortable. In short, she is a gussied-up, under-dressed over-groomed young thing. But oh, what a beauty.