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I saw this short story in an anthology years ago. At least 20 years old, probably more.

This was a humorous short story about a child of human parents who was born as a tiny earth, complete with landform and weather, which then rapidly evolved tiny dinosaurs and finally primates, to the fascination of the baby's brother and parents. There were some amusing swipes at the government's attempts to take the baby away from the parents, and other social & political responses to this bizarre event. Baby had a post-hippie type of name, perhaps Zenobia?

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    – Stormblessed
    Apr 20, 2019 at 14:16
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    Zenobi doesn't seem like a "post-hippie type of name" to me. The name has been used for a long time. There is the movie Zemobia (1939) where Zenobia is an elephant. The most famous Zenobia was Septimia Zenobia of Palmyra (c.240-c.274), Queen of Kings of the East and would be Roman Empress. And there were other Zenobias in history. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenobia_(disambiguation) So Zenobia seems like a very, very, pre-hippie, not post-hippie, type name to me.
    – M. A. Golding
    Apr 20, 2019 at 16:21
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    Gosh, I read that one recently. They let the child "float away" at the end. I'll look for it.
    – Emsley Wyatt
    Apr 20, 2019 at 16:38

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The story is "Daughter Earth" by James Morrow, the lead story in the Full Spectrum 3 anthology published in 1991.

A Pennsylvania farmer's wife gives birth to a baby biosphere named Zenobia.

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  • books.google.co.uk/…
    – Valorum
    Apr 20, 2019 at 17:01
  • Thanks so much, Emsley. For MA Golding: yes, I'm aware of the name history. What I meant was that it had been a vanishingly rare name, apart from some tiny arty enclaves, until the hippie era broke all the rules, and suddenly there were weird names all around us.
    – Rosco
    Apr 21, 2019 at 0:13

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