Dear nephew,
I am sorry that I have repeatedly described you as a hairless mouse, a monkey, a disturbing body infestation, and an alien. I may have overreacted to you slightly. Let me explain about the latter two insults. You see, when my sister described the way you were trying to claw through her ribcage with your tiny fingernails, my mind immediately leaped to such pop culture classics as the Alien series (while I am aware that you are currently too young to know the Alien series, I am sure you will one day see and appreciate the magnitude of the early insults I heaped upon you). I was aware that you were, in fact, a human, and not a razor-toothed extraterrestrial worm, and I managed to avoid describing you as such in my sister’s presence. However, I could not avoid describing you in this way to a few of my friends, co-workers, and a variety of strangers at a bus stop one day.
As for the hairless mouse and monkey metaphors: most mammals arrive on this earth after being crumpled up into a tiny ball and forced through an opening roughly 1/16 the size that they are. For this reason, I do maintain that, before they are properly unfolded and ironed flat, most smushed-up little newborns look relatively the same: something like a deflated red balloon dipped in honey and rolled on the floor of a hairdressing salon-- regardless of size or species. However, I will admit that, when I saw the first photos of you, I was struck by how cute you were (even though you had been out in the real world for less than an hour!). And, now that I have met you, I can agree that you are very sweet—adorable, even!—and positively humanoid.
Love,
Amy
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