Like Father, Like Daughter; Like Mother, Like Son

Though Aaron and Jada have no biological connection to Amy or I, you’d be hard-pressed to tell by the ways they are similar to us. Aaron is very much like Amy – grumpy in the morning, likes to sleep and watch TV, perishes easily if run too hard, and has trouble winding down at night. Jada is very much like me – up early in the morning, has no time for naps, goes at full tilt all day, and crashes early and hard at night. When they are older and we do more ambitious family vacations, I can easily imagine the four of us spending time on two parallel tracks: Aaron and Amy sleeping in, catching up on TV, and generally laying low, while Jada and I try to cram in as much activity as possible.

In fact, I’m not sure why I haven’t done more often what I did one recent weekend afternoon. We had put the kids in “room time” for the afternoon, and while Amy and Aaron dozed, Jada popped out of her room within minutes. I begged her to keep quiet while I caught a quick cat nap, and then let whisked her outside for some out-of-the-house errands, which she thoroughly enjoyed. We were waylaid by long lines at the post office and hardware store, so when we got home, Aaron had already woken up; but Amy plopped him in front of the TV and he was a happy camper, buying Amy some much-needed time to hit the books.

Like father, like daughter; and like mother, like son, I guess. You’d be hard-pressed to decipher either that Aaron and Jada aren’t biologically ours, given how much they resemble us, or that Aaron and Jada are non-biologically siblings, given how they march to the beat of different drummers. I suppose that’s what makes families fun.