My daughter looks nothing like me. She doesn't look like my husband, either. I tell him it's because she looks like our mailman. Or maybe she looks more like our pizza delivery guy. My husband rolls his eyes. Then we both return to looking at our baby girl, inspecting her face, trying to find traces of ourselves in her features.

As the days following her birth passed, I began to wonder whether the child I brought home could be the result of a switched-at-birth scenario. True, she never left my side at the hospital, but still. Perhaps the baby swap wasn't unintentional. Perhaps the whole thing was orchestrated by my OB-GYN, who could have strapped a replacement baby under my hospital bed. When I gave birth, maybe she handed off my genetic mini-me to her co-conspirator nurse and placed the baby stored under the bed onto my chest. Knowing my husband would be looking anywhere other than, well, you know where, the doctor knew she'd be in the clear for this most epic of baby swaps. It all made perfect sense!

Now, sure, there was the question of why my doctor would swap out my baby for another, but answers could easily be found. For example, perhaps she had been wrong in saying I was pregnant with a girl. When she noticed I was having a son in my last ultrasound at 36 weeks, she masterminded this switched-at-birth plan so she didn't have to admit her error. Or maybe in that same 36-week ultrasound, she noticed I was pregnant with some kind of half human, half beaked serpent hedgehog — you know, the kind of offspring begotten from a mythological god's extramarital affair with a humanoid. I'm fairly certain Zeus and his siblings had scores of these half-breeds hanging around Earth a few millenniums ago. My OB-GYN, a sworn protector of the gods' secrets, swapped out Spike, my gargoyle-ish child, for a full-human baby. I, of course, don't remember this supernatural romp with a Zeus cousin, because my doctor used one of those "Men in Black" memory-erasing pens on me. With substantiated conclusions such as these, it became perfectly evident that my new baby wasn't actually my baby. Something had to be done!

But then, as the days turned to weeks and the pictures I posted on Facebook increased, the strangest thing happened. Friends began commenting on how much my daughter resembled me. What were they talking about? I didn't see it. I wanted to see it. But I just didn't. I asked my best friend what features she thought my baby girl and I shared.

"She has your facial expressions!" my friend said.

Oh. Well, that was true enough. Practically from the moment they placed her on my chest, my daughter had nailed down my scowl. When my husband held her for the first time, he said, "There's the contemptuous, judgmental death glare I see from your mommy all the time."

My nearly 3-week-old daughter looks at everyone with disdain and utter embarrassment — which has made me realize two things. 1) We are completely screwed when she becomes a teenager. And 2) if this is the facial expression associated with looking like me, I really ought to take some kind of acting class to mask my feelings better — or just begin wearing masks. Yeah, that'll probably be easier.

Hey, it's not my fault. Shakira's hips don't lie, and neither do my eyebrows.

I told my friend that my daughter still may have been switched at birth, because I believe mimicking expressions has to do with nurture, not nature.

"Are you giving your new daughter your contemptuous, judgmental death glares?" she asked.

No. No, I wasn't. And why does everyone have the same name for my signature scowl?!

"So how can it be nurture if she hasn't seen it? It's in her genes."

I don't know whether I agree, but whether it's taught or inherited, I'm fairly certain the shared look marks my first parenting mistake with my daughter.

That being said, once everyone remarked on this mother-daughter resemblance, I began connecting with my girl a bit more. And as the days went on and her newborn puffiness settled, I could see she has my chin. And my husband's freaky toes. Maybe she is mine. All mine.

And if you say otherwise, my daughter and I will stare you down.

Like Katiedid Langrock on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/katiedidhumor. To find out more about Katiedid Langrock and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.