I used to hear parents talk about how different their kids are from each other and think, seriously? They’re from the same parents, how different can they be?
The answer is completely. My two boys are polar opposites. Frick and Frack. Black and White. The Waltons and Modern Family.
My oldest, built like a cinderblock, with thick, black hair and green eyes, is steady in gait and somber in attitude. While my youngest – wiry, blue-eyed, with wispy brown hair – races around with a devilish grin, that says, “Yeah, I’m lookin’ for trouble…”
And he finds it – because he’s a tester. And when I say he has to learn from his mistakes, I mean he has to learn from the same one over and over. Because he’ll keep making it until he’s positive the consequences aren’t gonna change.
Where my oldest is such a pleaser – he plays out the actions and the consequences in his head like a movie. He’d rather die than go to the principal’s office. Where my youngest wears it like a badge, introducing himself with the tag line “I got sent to the principal’s office.” Geesh.
The oldest may be good in school, but that doesn’t mean he wants to stay there all day. He spotted me in the hallway and followed me around telling me his elbow hurt, begging me to take him home. But when my youngest spotted me he started hollering at me that he hadn’t even been to writing yet, and to get lost.
The oldest also isn’t one to get dressed up. When I took him to get a coat and tie for a church presentation, I was so busy trying to lasso him with a necktie, I hadn’t noticed that my little guy had wiggled on slacks, a shirt and blazer, and announced he was never taking them off. He wears a coat and tie every Sunday. And slides the blazer on for any picture.
The oldest will wait until the last minute to dress for baseball. The youngest puts on his uniform the second he gets up and is dressed, laced and packed up before breakfast. And he doesn’t even have a game.
The oldest will eat anything you put on his plate. They youngest won’t eat anything that’s part of a casserole, or is touching a casserole, is cut at an angle, is hot, is cold, or doesn’t look like a cheeseburger.
The good thing is, that no matter what we do, where we go, or what we eat, we are guaranteed that one of them will be happy. And there are a handful of things they both love – cheeseburgers, baseball, movies and comic books.
And thankfully – each other.
