Kids' personalities are so wild. (Yes, I'm just going to jump right in to a new blog and hope you don't realize I haven't written one in 4 months- just go with it). Lately our bedtime routine has been to head upstairs at 7pm after a bath, get into PJ's, brush teeth, and read a chapter of Harry Potter. We are currently on book 2, they are dressing up as Harry and Hermione for Halloween, and they walk around the house with their fancy wands (thank you Amazon), trying to cast spells on everything they see. The whole experience of reading HP to them is everything I hoped it would be- they beg for more than one chapter a night, their imagination get to run wild, they gasp and scream out at all the right parts, and frankly it makes having children worthwhile.
Tonight, after finishing chapter 10 and attempting to explain to my Kindergartener what the word Chamber means, I tucked them each into their bed and told them I'd send Daddy right up to give them a kiss. Approximately 48 seconds later, Irv went upstairs. About 40 minutes later, he came downstairs.
"Long bedtime, huh?" I asked.
"Actually, Josh was already asleep when I went up there. Well, he was still moving around but clearly wanted no part of being bothered, so I just left him alone and went to Zoey's room. She proceeded to talk my ear off for over 30 minutes. I don't think I said one word." He replied.
And that is why I started this by saying that kids' personalities are wild. Our children are mirrors of us, and it's mind boggling. My son got all cozy in his bed, and under 1 minute later, drifting off to sleep, he simply could not be bothered, even just for a kiss from his hero of a father, for another 11 hours. Sleep is simply too important, too amazing and too magical to miss out on. THAT IS ME. Zoey, however, would take talking over sleeping any day of the week. AND WOULD IRV.
They do these types of things constantly, and they consistently stay in line with which parent they take after. If you offer Josh a handful of m&m's, he'll try to peak behind you to see where those came from and if you have any more back there. As will I. Don't try to tell me you just happen to have some random m&m's and that's all there is. I know there's more where those came from and I'll have them all, please. But offer those same m&m's to Zoey or Irv, and 9 times out of 10 they'll pass. They have this thing called willpower. Or just the ability to not need to eat sugar if it's offered to you but you don't want it. Blah.
And then there's the empathy. Last weekend in Maine we came across a grown man at our hotel having some sort of meltdown outside. There were tears, it was loud, we minded our own business and that was that. The following day, as we were driving home, I was wondering to myself what may have made that man start crying in the first place when a voice from the backseat of the car spoke up. "Do you think that man from the hotel is okay? Should someone check on him?" Josh's eyes were big and watery. Zoey and Irv, in unison, said "What man?" And it's not that they don't care about people's pain; they are kind and sympathetic people, but they had moved on and we had not. Josh and I have a hard time getting over sad or difficult things we encounter, while the other two are much quicker to keep truckin' on.
Another commonality my son and I share is enjoying certain things that others may think are disgusting. When Zoey lost her first few teeth, she didn't want anyone pulling on them or twisting them. She, like most people, let them fall out on their own sweet time. Josh, however, at the first sign of any loosening, comes bolting towards me begging me to yank it out as hard as I can. And I oblige, almost giddily. The most recent tooth he lost was wiggly for what seemed like a matter of hours, but he wanted it out and I wanted to feel it detach from those roots, and so out it came. We're so gross. I also enjoy watching replays of football or basketball players who land wrong and their bones break and their foot is pointing the complete wrong way and poke right out of their skin, and so does Josh. Sometimes I find myself watching a clip repeatedly and look up to see my husband staring at me like he's ready to call a mental institution. Meanwhile he could barely peak through his own hands covering his face while we watched Get Out, and Zoey can't get through an episode of Paw Patrol without being scared of a plot line.
There's really no point to any of this except to say that genetics and personalities and children are wild. We also have spent no less than 2.3 million days with them since 2020 began, so I've been able to really examine their behavior and dissect it and examine how it matches with ours. Some people have mastered puzzles during this time, and it seems I'm becoming a Rakhlin family psychologist. It's also pretty cool that all the qualities that made me fall in love with my husband, I can see in my daughter. She has it all- his determination and persistence, his quiet intelligence and incredible way with words. The way they don't just give their love out to just anyone, but if you're one of the lucky ones on whom they shine their light, they won't ever let you go- not even for a second. And Josh and I are thankful for that every day.
