Bum or cherry?

There is always, with each of your children, an outstanding feature which strikes you at once. Not literally, not unless you have given birth to Cyrano de Bergerac, but something that is, at once, noticeable.

With El, it was her pretty little mouth. It took us several days to name her and, until she was named, she was called 'Rosebud'. Yes, very Citizen Kane, but that was not in our minds.

With Al, it was his left ear. This turns over more than the average at the top. I was, until then, totally unaware that mine does too.

With Ro, it was the shape of his head. A very shapely head, had Ro. The word 'Mekon' came to mind, just a little.

When I first saw Pugsley, I said (oh, and am I a bad grandmother) "Blimey, what a bum chin!" His parents did look just a little startled. But there is a definite, if tiny, cleft to the chin.

But when I tested them, so had both his parents. And so does Ro. Not visibly, just in test conditions. Which are, of course, taking a firm grasp of the chin - sideways, not top to bottom - with thumb and forefinger (you can test yourself or someone else this way) and seeing whether the middle goes in (bum) or out (cherry).

Ro maintained that everyone is, at bottom, a bum. Until I proved otherwise. Then he said that his father must be a bum, for the tendency to have been passed down.

It must be a recessive gene. Like baldness, it can skip a generation.

The Sage and I are both cherries.