So Much Alike…Yet So Different

As a mother of two girls, I find it almost uncanny how different they are.  They both have the same parents but are just like night and day!  I found this a challenge to adjust once Lauren was born because, like any good parent would do, I compared the two of them frequently.

Rachel Mackenzie just turned four in November.  She was a WONDERFUL baby!  She slept all of the time and slept through the night almost right out of the womb.  She rarely cried…only if she was hungry or sleepy.  She had the best disposition as an infant. She did not ever cry when I dropped her off at the church nursery or at parent’s day out.  Then…something HORRIBLE happened when she turned 18 months old!  It was literally like a switch was turned on.  She turned into a TODDLER!  A fit-throwing, head-banging, screaming toddler.  That was also the same time I found out about my second bundle of blessing and I asked my husband, “What are we doing?”

That second bundle has a name – Lauren Elizabeth.  She will be two in March.  She was a challenging baby.  First of all, let me mention that she weighed 9 lbs, 9 oz and was three weeks early!  The first night after she was born, I did not think she would ever stop crying.  I was convinced that she was starving.  I sent that baby to the nursery and asked them to give her just a dropper full of formula until my milk came in.  They would keep her for 3-4 hours at a time in the nursery.  Well, the crying didn’t really stop after my milk came in.  She was/is just…high maintenance!  I really wanted a little momma’s boy the second time around but what I got was a momma’s girl!!  She was stuck to me like glue!  Now, as a toddler, she is MOSTLY calm (still pretty demanding) and takes to discipline so well!  She doesn’t throw many fits and does not bang her head on the floor (thankfully)!  I can ask her to do something and most of the time she does it without any word.

It is so interesting to me how many of my friends say the same thing…that their kids are so different.  Each unique yet still have the same genes.  Regardless of how difficult our children are at a given stage – there is a commonality between them…we love them both the same and they are our world!!

Although they are very different in nature, they do look a lot alike!

Rikki Hester is a social worker at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital and Mom of two who feels blessed to be able to touch people’s lives in all aspects of who she is and what she does.