Not My Cookie Cutter Batch of Kids

Picture by Chance Agrella

For our second born, I thought I knew what kind of kid we'd be getting.  As though our DNA could only whip up one batch of great cookie dough, and all our kids would differ in appearance but not essential nature.  And then out pops the second born and he is as different from the first as pizza is from pumpkin soup.  This is not just another cookie with a few decorative differences.  Here is a whole new amazing person to discover and delight in at his own pace.

And so we do.  I try really hard to not compare, though I catch myself doing it all the time.  Not because I think one is better than the other, but mostly because I can't stop marveling that they really are *that* different.  Endlessly.  

I struggle to even think of how to show you how different they are.

If one is an onion we discover in sequential ways, the other is a pomegranate full of  unexpected complexity we aren't aware of right away.

How can you even compare an onion to a pomegranate?  Exactly.  They are that different.

But one thing is the same about these little people who call me mom:

Their ability to surprise me all the time.

Tonight my second born who still calls both Bill and I "mom", whose known word count falls below the average measures some experts have charted for his age, who often seems more prone to injury than insight at this stage of his life, yes, this one,

He goes outside and points up to the lovely half moon and says,  "Moon."

Simplest little syllable of no earth-shattering consequence to anybody but me, but I'm truly left to wonder, how did he know that?

His other accomplishments of the day include getting completely naked in his crib before I came and got him this morning, slamming his thumb in the waffle maker he managed to pull out of the cupboard twice, getting on Landon's bike by himself and precariously balancing on it, naming the letter Y by what seems to be sheer crazy luck, singing rather tunelessly at the top of his lungs in the car without saying a single word, and straddling the toilet fully dressed while saying "poo."  I can only surmise he has ambitions to be an early potty trainer.

So there's my little second born unwilling to go back inside the house until I acknowledge the beautiful moon.  

Keep pointing, my little man.  I kinda suspect there's a lot more out there you'll want us to discover with you.

Even if we're sometimes cringing at the perilous path you take to find it.