Oh, horrors. You've just had your baby, and the new grandparents descend on your home to "ooh" and "aah." Then someone pipes up with, "I think she has her grandpa's ears!" What? Those mudflaps?! For some reason, relatives just can't resist playing psychic when it comes to babies. They love to predict what our little half-formed blobs of flesh will look and act like as they mature. Maybe some part of it is trying to lay claim to all the good genes that come from their side of the family.

We parents need to be the voice of reason here. We should model the practice of self-restraint and wait patiently as our littlest ones grow to see which traits mirror our own. Yet the allure of playing sideshow fortuneteller sometimes gets to be too much for even us, I'm afraid. We get sucked in. We, too, squint into pinched baby faces like they are fuzz-topped crystal balls.

Sometimes it's great fun to guess whom a child will take after. You anxiously await the moment when those puffy little eyes open for a second prophesy whether they'll be blue or brown. A first gummy grin becomes a divine sign that your littlest will be kind, outgoing, forgiving and a philanthropist of a magnitude never before seen in this century. You try to catch the tufts of fine hair in just the right light to convince your mother that it will indeed be more her shade of blonde than your reddish tint. You comment on the short, stubby legs -- obviously a pass down from your in-laws' ancestors.

There's a down side to this little crib-side carnival act, though.

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