So Very Different

Isn't it funny how your kids can be so alike, but so different? I see so many similarities between Samuel, Avery and Isaac, and yet they all have their own unique personality! When Samuel was a toddler, he loved playing with flash cards. He would organize them and carry them with him everywhere he went. He had several different sets of flash cards. And even though he stopped playing with them when he got to the age of 5 - 5 1/2, I've held on to them.

On Saturday, I was doing some spring cleaning in the kid's closets when I came across the big basket full of flash cards. I was so excited to show them to Isaac because Samuel was around 2 1/2 when he started showing an interest in them. But Isaac could have cared less. I tried many times to engage Isaac with the cards, but he kept tossing them aside. And then it occurred to me that he was much more interested in playing with the animal figurines I was taking out of Samuel's room and had piled up on the table. Long before Samuel was born, when I was running the day care out of our home, every time I would take the kids to the zoo I would buy them each one of these animal figurines. We got quite a good collection of animals over time. Samuel's had them in his room since before he was born, but he's never really shown too much interest in them. So I was finally prepared to take them out of his room and give them away, but before I could do that, Isaac grabbed them all up and started playing with them. They are now his new favorite thing to play with. He carries as many of them as he can in his arms, and then proceeds to take one in each hand and pretends that they are fighting with each other. He wants to take them everywhere he goes and refuses to put them down, even when it's bath time. It reminded me of Samuel with those flash cards, wanting to take them EVERYWHERE.....

Hey, have you seen any wild animals anywhere?

Now, I can honestly say that this must be something inherent within the lad, because I've never shown him how to make animals fight each other. He just knows how to do it... And that reminded me of the time I snapped this picture of Avery at the age of 3:She would carry her baby dolls around on her hip like that, and I never once showed her how to do that. She just knew how... It could simply be the difference between boys and girls, but I think it's more than that. It's like I always tell my kids... just like you have brown eyes and I have blue eyes, and he has brown skin and she has black skin, and she has curly hair and he has straight hair, and you like green beans but he doesn't, and you walk on both legs but she needs a wheelchair, and you want to love on your baby dolls but he wants to chunk them across the room, and you wear glasses but none of the other kids in your class do... we are all so very different. But being different from each other doesn't make one thing wrong and the other right... just different... We are all so very different from one another. And it's these differences that make this great big world that we live in such a special place!

And by the way, I'm still going to hang on to those flash cards...