I love babies, especially my babies, but I don't think love has to be blind. Sometimes babies are just, well...ugly. When mine were newborns, I loved their wrinkly mashed up faces, teeny fingers, and kidney-bean-shaped little bodies that fit perfectly on the shelf of one forearm. I could gaze at them, entranced, for hours.

My daughter at one day and eighteen months old:


I just didn't think they were angelic little doll-faces, either, which was fine because I adored them and knew they were beautiful to me. They've been physically beautiful at some stages, too, which is always nice, just not a prerequisite, in my mind, to almost unbearable, heart-swelling mommy love.

For kicks, check out this clip of Kramer reacting to the infamous ugly baby from Seinfeld:



Unfortunately, not all your friends are going to notice that their sweet little shoe-faces aren't quite ready for the cover of Baby Talk, and you might not want to lie to them. Also, if you recognize that your own offspring are more appreciable for their snap-quick intelligence than their similarities to Christie Brinkley, admitting it, to most people, will earn you looks of sheer horror or at least acute discomfort, followed by stumbling comments like, "Oh, she's a perfectly, um, nice-looking, that is, all kids are beautiful, or, well, most kids..."

So here are a few things you can say about a (temporarily, physically) ugly baby:

1. Oh, what a sweet little thing!
2. Aren't babies the most precious thing in the world?
3. You must be so proud of your little angel.
4. That's uncanny--she looks just like your side of the family! (This doesn't have to be true since a person who believes a newborn looks like anyone but Winston Churchill is crazy anyway.)
5. She's already looking so alert and interested in the world.
6. The little sweet-pea--I bet your mom is over the moon in love with her.
7. What a darling outfit! Where did you get that one?
8. She has such a serene expression.
9. What a healthy, pink skin tone she has!
10. Aw, she's just so wonderfully tiny.
11. Aw, she's so big and healthy.
12. You should be proud of yourself for giving birth to her.
13. I'll bet she grows up as beautiful as her mom.
14. How did you stop the nurses from keeping this one?
15. When's the bris? (No matter the baby's gender or parents' religion, this will so confuse or animate people that they forget completely that you didn't give a compliment.)
16. I can't believe how skinny you already look! (You could actually follow this one by saying the baby looks like a garden gnome, and the mother will still love you.)
17. What a precious gift you have there.
18. Awwwwwww.
19. Does she always sleep/eat/cry this well?
20. Look at those eyelashes/toes/pink cheeks! (Pick a lovely feature if you can't appreciate the whole.)

Dale Carnegie, in How to Win Friends and Influence People, says, "Let's try to figure out the other person's good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation."

You don't have to lie, and most people, even doting parents, are smart enough to at least wonder if you're flattering them when you call their little guinea pig a Gerber baby. Be a little creative instead, and that sincere compliment you find to say will be treasured in that parent's heart, perhaps forever!

That is funny you should say "their guinea pig" because that was the nickname my gmom gave me. Hmmm maybe she was just honest. Loved her anyway.