I was uncomfortably holding my daughter on my lap when I said, “I can’t believe you’re almost 10 years old. In less than two months, you’ll be in double digits.”
She said, “Oh no. That’s true! I will be!”
I didn’t think I heard her correctly. “What? Aren’t you excited to turn 10?”
She replied, “I am, but I’ll be in double digits for the rest of my life! It’s so permanent. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Well, unless I live as long as those Smucker’s people.”
One of my daughter’s traits that I brag about is her sense of compassion. When she was little, she went to preschool with a severely delayed boy. Without prompting by us, or by her teachers, she would seek him out and invite him to play each day. She even offered him the coveted job of helping to pass out napkins on her birthday.
But at his school, they are trying to help us lead him down a compassionate road. At least a couple of times a month, my son has been taking canned goods to school to donate to needy families.
At first, he didn’t understand why we were giving away perfectly good peanut butter, so I explained that we were providing food to help people who don’t have any.
Just over a month ago, I was out of town and my six year old son got sick with a sinus infection. My husband took him to the pediatrician on a Saturday, which meant seeing a different doctor than we normally do.
The doctor they saw is a lovely, kind, intelligent woman, but is that what my kid focused on? Of course not. He instead greeted this complete stranger by saying, “You have a really, really, really, big nose.”
So when my daughter had an asthma attack last Saturday and I had to schedule an appointment with the same doctor, I warned my boy not to say a word.
And I think the kid is starting to comprehend what I’m saying, because as the doctor with the big nose was examining my daughter, I looked down to see my son biting his lips so hard I thought they might bleed.
The other day, I was walking around with Paula Abdul’s song “Opposites Attract” in my head. Why? Because there is some sick, twisted part of my brain that is apparently into self-torture.
But in fact, dealing with opposites is part of my daily routine. My nine year old daughter and six year old son could not be more different.
Other than the fact that they were both preemies, there are little similarities between the two of them. I can probably name them on one hand. They both like roller coasters, movies, Tootsie Pops, reading books, and long walks on the beach. That’s about it.
My daughter rises early, likes to help me clean, and hates to be tickled . My son has to be physically removed from his bed, makes big messes, and begs us to tickle him until he’s ready to pee his pants.
She likes sparkles, he likes trucks. She like horses, he likes trucks. She likes shopping, he likes trucks. Okay, okay, he likes trains too.
My daughter is predictable, while he is a wild-card. She is well-behaved, and we call him Jim Carrey Junior. She is polite, and he once told a woman with big lips that she looked like a fish.
Tonight at dinner, they showed us yet another difference between them. Because when I grabbed some quick extras to go with our cheeseburgers, my son saw me and said, “Yum! A veggie tray!”
And my daughter said, “Yum! Sun chips!”
She totally takes after her Mother.
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