Lipstick, Lacan and Rashes

So, I thought this was common knowledge, but, according to my google searches, I'm some sort of freak.  At some point, babies start to recognize themselves in the mirror.  Normally, this is before they have the verbal ability to say, "Hey Mom!  That baby, the one that has been staring back at me from that shiny thing, is ME!"  So there is a test.  You put lipstick on their cheek, hold them up in front of the mirror, and see if they try to wipe it off their cheek.  I wanted to sum this all up in a link, so I didn't seem like a rambling pop-psychology Dr. Phil/Oprah freak.  All I could find was this.  It is rambling, but I wish I had read it before yesterday.

Yesterday I caught Harper looking in the mirror, and I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition.  So I broke out some bright red glittery super cheep lipstick and smeared it all over her cheek.  I held her up to the mirror, and nothing.  

I tried to wipe off the lipstick, but I could not get it all off.  It looked like I had put blush on half her face.  I figured it would wear off as the day went on, and it did.  In it's place a small rash appeared.  Thankfully, Skylar worked late and did not see her last night, so no one knows.  Hopefully, it will be gone this morning.

Any-who, if I had read the link above, I would have known not to try this till 16 months, not 8 months.  Next time I'll try something hypoallergenic, too.

Comments

[Al Herrmann]

Ooops!!! But where's the picture?

[milkymilk]

I know! I tried last night to get a good photo of it, but the light was too low. The flash on my camera blows. Everything ends up washed out or black.

[Al Herrmann]

I seem to remember that you wrote a paper about an artist who did work w/ her daughters based on this, didn't you?

[milkymilk]

You could be my historian. The pay is crap, but the job is yours, if you want it.

The paper (which was really an art school project) was a tribute to Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document:

http://www.postmastersart.com/archive/MK/MK_PPD_window.html

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8495.php

I did the mirror test on Skanky, now Spanky.

[Brynne Humphreys]

Mary, your lack of spelling errors is starting to disturb me.