I watched Elizabeth’s curls fly as I pushed the swing higher.
“Higher!”
“Is this high enough?”
“I so brave! I not scared at all!”
I laughed as her assurances and couldn’t help but think how different she is than her older brother. It’s absolutely amazing to me that two children being raised by the same two people and who share so many of the same experiences could be so totally different.
Joseph is cautious in both his thinking and his actions. When he was three, he’d climb the play structures only if they had hand rails. And then he stayed far from the edges, stopping when he was eye level with me and refusing to go higher. He wasn’t a fan of sliding down slides and he rarely agreed to the swings. He played and ran and laughed, but always carefully. He’s still careful, though he now loves the swings and slides and to dangle from monkey bars.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, sends me into heart failure on a daily basis. If there’s something deadly around, she’s in the middle of it. I’ve called poison control three times and have rushed her to the doctor so often I’m sure CPS will be knocking on my door. She doesn’t comprehend the word “no” and leaps before thinking. Where Joseph was – and still is – a mellow child, Elizabeth give testament to all the red haired cliches.
It keeps me on my toes, the differences between those two. I can’t help but wonder if it’s a matter of being first and second born, a matter of being a boy and a girl, or a matter of being a Taurus and Leo.
Either way, they fascinate me. What sort of differences do you notice in your children?
