Further Proof

Every day I'm struck with how different my children are [from each other].  I admit that Josh and Kate are the definition of boy/girl stereotypes - but I offer you further proof:

           Who but a girl wears special earrings for music class?

          Sets up class seating charts for her pretend students?

 

My mom recently framed this picture that Kate drew of she and Emma.  On Emma's shirt [in the picture], is written, "switey" - translation: sweetie

And, the best part of soccer games: snack time - induces running and smiles.every.time.

 Then there's this cool dude.  He puts his all into soccer, friends, and fun.  He keeps antlers, ammunition, and various dart guns in his room.  His outfits include whatever is clean and in his room.  He's almost as incapable as his dad when it comes to finding what he's looking for (even if it's right in front of him). 

  Today was picture day.  He packed his "dressy" polo shirt to change into five minutes before pictures and then proceeded to change promptly after the flashbulb went out.

He's great at building forts, playing outside, and the kid can run forever.  

     Then there is this little squirrel - we never quite know what she's going to do - or who she'll turn out to be.

And, because I can't resist, I'm reposting this little essay on the difference between boys and girls - original posting date was November 20, 2009. 



Two nights ago we were spending time together as a family. Okay, not really, but we were all in the living room together. Rob and Josh were side by side on the sofa on their respective laptops, I was in the armchair on my laptop, and the girls were playing school on the floor. The boys spent over two hours searching for the perfect air soft gun. The neighbor boys just bought a "sick" air-soft gun and Josh was desperate to find something equally painful. No kidding, one of the testimonials said that the gun was so powerful it made their friend cry.

There is quite the difference between our kids. The girls play library, school, they carry around babies and stuffed animals, and pretend to talk to their "boyfriends" on their cell phones. Josh arranges wars with the neighbors, stalks our resident chipmunk with his bb gun, and has one minute phone conversations with his best friend.

What I find hilarious is that we as adults are just as different. I love this story I'm about to tell you. I really couldn't find a better illustration if I tried. Anyone who knows me well will probably have already heard this story and I apologize. It's simply too perfect not to retell. A few years ago we had some visiting family from Colorado. They brought some recent family pictures from Christmas and a small vacation they'd taken with siblings, parents, cousins, etc. The women, of course, all excitedly flipped through the photos, oohing and aahing over the darling children and how fast they'd grown. There were pictures of each member of the extended family and the women stopped to comment on a picture of Rob's uncle. We noticed how he's gotten new glasses that "made him look younger", and "oh, my, his hair is really turning gray".

Well, believe it or not, the guys did want to look at the pictures, but not to ooh and ahh over the babies and Christmas decorations. They flipped immediately to the picture of Rob's uncle (not to point out his new glasses or grey hair). No, the reason they flipped to that picture is that said uncle was holding his new Christmas present. It was an AK-47 (a large automatic rifle for those of you who don't have husbands well-versed in our 2nd amendment). Okay, let me spell it out for you. Uncle Charlie was holding a gun larger that life and the women didn't even notice!


**Thanks for the awesome soccer pics, Josh and Kara!**