Pants Free Parenting: Your baby is always the most beautiful

When my daughter was born, my husband and I were convinced she was perfect. And not just perfect for us but quite literally the most perfect human child that had ever been birthed onto the earth. 'Look,” I said to my mom, shoving my daughter into her face. 'She doesn't look like those other newborns. She is perfect. So golden and gorgeous. Have you ever seen a more perfect child?”

My mom smiled. 'Yes, she is so perfect.”

Our smug sense of baby perfection only increased when we took her out into public. People would stop us and say, 'What a beautiful baby!” 'Oh, she is so gorgeous.”

We would smile and nod. Of course she was. Of all the babies in all the world, she was the most beautiful, the smartest and the best. The uber baby. The baby that set the standard for all other babies.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a picture of my daughter as a newborn. She was lying in her bouncy seat, her face twisted into a grimace that expressed either displeasure or a bowel movement. Her little hands were clawed and her face jutted out with wide staring eyes like a gargoyle. I took the picture down to my husband.

'Look,” I said, 'this is our daughter. She looks just like a normal baby here. Remember how we thought she was so perfect? But look, she looks kind of, like the president of an Eastern European country!”

My husband shook his head. 'It must be another baby.”

In the past four years since she's been born, I've begun to understand how incredibly insane new parents are. It's a true insanity. An insanity that doesn't even recognize itself. A few months ago, I was reading entries into the Gerber Baby Competition, and each one read the same: 'We knew our child was the most beautiful child, but after so many people complimented us, we decided, maybe he should be a baby model.”

It didn't matter what the baby looked like - turkey neck, patched together with eczema and baby acne. Each entry was predicated on the full and absolute belief that this baby was the most beautiful, the smartest and the best. The uber baby. The baby that sets the standard for all other babies.

When my son was born, he came out all squished up and his mouth was so big it didn't shut. But even then, I remember thinking how he was so immensely gorgeous and perfect and how the hospital nurses had never seen a baby who could hold a candle to him - you know, since the last time I gave birth.

It's so sweet and completely delusional. Of course all parents loves their child. But let's be honest here: most newborn babies look like Gollum. Still, there is something in us that loves a baby. We can't stop cooing over them, doting on them, loving them.

I'm fine with people thinking their ugly babies are gorgeous. Every child deserves to have someone think they are amazing - to think that even in their most gargoyle, they are perfection. It's the greatest gift a parent can give to a child, to be loved and adored even in your most flawed and ugly state.

Last week, I saw a baby with a chubby face that looked perma-angry. He had a mop of red hair that stuck up at all ends, his little hands clawed like a mythical creature by his face. I stopped his mom,\ to tell her how completely adorable her baby was. He was. He was one weird-looking, adorable baby, and I wanted to kidnap him and raise him as my own.

l Lyz Lenz is a writer, mother of two and hater of pants. Email her at eclenz@gmail.com or find her writing at LyzLenz.com.