…the more our kids look alike.
Catie may be six years older than Nate, but the resemblance is enough to make me try and remember high school Biology DNA. Double helixes and chromosomes and dominant and recessive genes and how they all work so that our kids baby pictures…and our KIDS can look so much alike.
Even though Nate looks just like the other kids, so much changes between each one.
Or maybe it’s just that M. and I change so much with each one.
I was technically in my ‘20s when Catie was born. And I was so much more restless. And high strung. And unconfident. We read so many books and tried to do exactly what they said.
With Nate?
Life seems to fall more easily into patterns. It’s easier to let go of control and marvel at it all. It’s nice to know which book tips are important (relaxing will make breastfeeding easier) and which are not (no pacifiers the first month).
Case in point: the pediatrician discharged Catie with instructions to rub alcohol on her umbilical cord stump at EVERY SINGLE DIAPER CHANGE. Which we did. Religiously. We couldn’t forget. We would disrobe her (yes, removing a newborn’s clothes, ugh) to do it if we forgot.
Now?
“Oh, yeah,” the nursery nurse said, “we don’t recommend that anymore.”
Huh. The more things change…
And yet, like all our kids, Nate does the adorable hunger cues (chewing on his hand, opening his mouth to the side) when it’s time to eat. When he’s full, he stretches and gets all marshmallow-faced. And when we dare give him a bath or change his diaper? Not having it. Hates it just like his older brother and sisters did.
It’s reassuring, really. We may be different. The other babies may have changed us.
And yet, everything is really the same.
Especially those big, soulful eyes.
