Brother and Sister: Night and Day I always knew that people were different. Everyone is unique, and has a very different personality. When one thinks of family though, uniqueness is sometimes forgotten. I never realized how much this was true until I had my children. My children showed me, with all their differences, that there Is uniqueness even among family. The very first difference that Is noticed In my children Is their appearance. Matthew, my son and first born, was born with a head of hair. This wasn’t much of a surprise, considering the amount of heartburn I had.
What was a surprise was that Matthew had dark brown hair. I had expected him to have blonde hair, because everyone In my husband’s family has blonde hair. Matthew looked Like such a little gentleman with his thick, straight hair. What was a surprise was that Taylor, my daughter, on the other hand, was born with the slightest amount of peach fuzz, blonde peach fuzz. Taylor was almost one before her hair was long enough, and thick enough to get a bow to stay in her hair. Once Tailor’s hair finally did come in, unlike Matthews, her air was nothing but curls.
When I say that my two children are as different as night and day, I mean it literally as well as figuratively. Matthew was born around 9:30 pm, after 12 hours of labor. Taylor, on the other hand, was born around 1 1 :30 am, after only a half hour of labor. From the start, Matthew and Taylor made their differences known. Both had very different sleeping habits. Matthew was sleeping through the night for me by the time he was one month old. When Matthew took a nap, he would sleep for five to six hours at a time.
As Matthew napped, I didn’t have to stand guard over the doorbell for fear that the noise would wake him. Matthew could sleep through anything. In contrast, Taylor didn’t sleep through the night until she was eight or nine months old. Unlike her brother, when Taylor napped, I didn’t have the luxury of five or six hour naps. Taylor was able to catch her second wind after only fifteen minutes, leaving little time for me to catch a second wind. When Taylor slept, the doorbell got taped over with a note saying “ring, knock and die!
Taylor was such a light sleeper, unlike her brother, that I had to put the cat outside, for fear that, from upstairs, she would hear the cat purring, and cut her fifteen minute nap short. My children’s play habits are very different as well. Matthew would spend hours with his blocks, or Just looking at picture books. Matthew has always been very content to play on his own. For Christmas one year, I got him a ruble cube. Over a year later, and Matthew Is still working on the puzzle. While Matthew loves playing with his toys, Taylor was just the opposite.
The only thing Taylor would play with was everyone’s patience. Taylor hates to play alone, and she hates it even more if she has to figure out a toy. I got Taylor a 25 piece puzzle once. After five minutes of trying to put it together, the puzzle ended up in the toilet. Different. Appearance is the first difference that is noticed, but their uniqueness goes deeper than that. From the time Matthew and Taylor were born, literally, they were different. The differences in my kids sleeping, and play habits, further shows what different people they are.
