Apples From the Trees

just a touch of shadow on the moon

You may have seen the news about the super blue blood moon on January 31. Living where we do, I knew we wouldn't have a view during the totality because the moon was going to set before it was time. I thought I'd probably get up to take a look, but figured the boys wouldn't be that interested. At bedtime on Tuesday night, I mentioned it. JT said he should probably get up to see it. I was kind of surprised since he's not a morning person and previous attempts to drag him out of bed for eclipses and meteor showers weren't always received with thankfulness.

When I asked him about it he said, "I guess I should get up to see something that hasn't happened since 1866." Can I just say how happy I am that he is making decisions that show he thinks like me? I'm confident that if he has children someday he'll drag them out of bed at all hours to stare at the sky.

Thinking about this now brings to mind a conversation I had this week. We go to Bible study at our church on Wednesday nights. The boys are both in the teen class. This week they had a visitor in their class who has met our family, but hasn't spent a lot of time with us yet.

After class she said to me, "Listening to both of your boys, I can really see which parent each of them takes after."

She told me she thought EM was more like me because of how much he was talking in class. This may be true today, but when JT was younger, he could talk the ear off of any person he met. As he grew older, he became quieter, spending more of his time in public observing others. EM is definitely more of an extrovert. I'm one of those rare introverts who really likes being with people, but needs time alone after to recover from too much people-time. My husband is more of a true introvert; he'll almost always choose alone time over time with others. In those ways, EM is like me, and JT is like him.

However, when it comes to interests, I would say that JT and I have more in common. We are the hikers, the readers, the documentary watchers, Malcolm Gladwell podcast fans. EM and his dad are the mathy, interested in how things work, public speaking, computer guys. We cross over in a few places. JT and his dad are the musicians. EM and I are the noticing what other people need, list maker, control freaks. Their sister, my oldest, has many of my character traits, and many people say they knew she had to be my daughter when they met her, even though they had not been told.

As a parent it's so interesting watching them turn into mashed up versions of us, with some of their own qualities thrown in to make something totally different. It's like an extended science experiment we get to observe. What will the final product look like? Only time will tell.