little – me’s

When you are growing up and the world tells you, “You are so much like your mother.  You do this like your father,” you scoff if you are in your preteens, politely accept it when you are a teenager, and relish and appreciate it when you are an adult.  Those compliments, as I now know they are (well, most of the time :) , are often reflections of traits that we adore or have been genetically given by our parents.  And when everyone said to us before having kids, “Just wait, you will see yourself in them,” I thought, “HA!”. 

I was wrong.  And now I know.  This is Anna, pouring over the latest ad she saw laying on the table while she ate her cheerios.  She was very intrigued, and as she learned from watching Mommy and Grandmom on Black Friday, she would point to a picture and say, “Mommy, I like dat. I buy dat.”  Ahh, she has the shopping gene of sales and deals already.  But that’s mild compared to what comes next. The kids and I were out running around and came upon these really cute ornaments that they could make…and I, as someone who is always on the lookout for a project to do on these cold winter days, snapped them up and let them pick their own.  Anna picked a gingerbread girl and Hudson the gingerbread house.   Anna lovingly and somewhat haphazardly glued her lady together, designed her with a little extra marker, and bedazzled her with some glitter glue.  Much like myself, not too perfectionistic-ly, but with a 2 year-old’s care and artistic impressionism (meaning – it didn’t have to look like the picture, exactly).

Then there is our little Chris.  Yes.  Hudson.  He’s a little over the top with his perfectionism, and we are working to diffuse it a bit before school begins for him!  This little man had to make his gingerbread house exactly like the picture.  And we’re not talking frame and structure.  This little man had to have the gumdrops in perfect rows on the top of the house.  Not only perfect rows, but IN THE SAME COLOR ORDER AS THE PICTURE.  It was a little disturbing, but mostly funny as I saw my wonderful husband shining through this delightful four year old creature.

Yup, and if I think about it too much, this phenomena may scare me…so I choose not to think about it too much – and pray that therapy may help them sometime in the future! :)