Faulty recognition system

I'm not very good at recognizing faces, especially out of context. Once, about 6 months after moving here, I ran into C's aunt in town. Only I thought it was C's mother. I was completely tongue-tied by my lack of French to say much - which she must have thought very odd since she speaks perfect English. I've had people come up to me to say hello and not had a clue who they are, even though we have been introduced and may have seen each other a few times. I also have a regular job where I have to identify people in a crowd based on a photo (so that I can interview them) - I usually end up just paging them.

This is fault is obviously a little socially awkward and sometimes embarrassing, but lately it's entered the realm of alarming: more than once when I've gone to pick up Little-L from his daycare, I've had a moment of confusion wondering which baby is mine. Today I saw a baby sitting at the table, dismissed him as not mine, looked around for Little-L, and only realised when one of the carers said to the baby at the table Oh look Little-L, here's your mum that this child was in fact my son. And even then, I had a momentary thought of Really? Is that really what he looks like?

Crikey.