Exploring and Creating...

Science and the Arts. Left-brained and right-brained. Intellectual and creative.

Call me completely naive, but when Ana was born, I just assumed that she would act a lot like Hayden. They definitely looked a lot alike. So why shouldn't they act alike? I know, I know - total new mom idea. Well, that obviously led to one of the major "discoveries" I remember making as a young mother. All kids are born with unique and wonderful personalities, and there is nothing you can do to change that. We have been blessed with two fantastically different children (Sophie's true nature is still yet to be determined, but it's coming along, and I'm slightly afraid of what it might be. That crazy little monster:) )

Hayden is our little intellect in training. He is so intrigued by the world around him... the WHOLE world. He is in love with maps(and globes), history, how things work, and anything that can be taken apart and put back together again. Not to mention his love for animals and any fact that can be produced about them. I love to watch his brain work, as he sits and studies a toy dinosaur that has a button that causes it's head to move up and down. He pushes it over and over again, watching it closely, and then finally... "Oh, I get it! Mom, it works like a teeter-totter on the inside. When you push on the button it's like sitting on a teeter-totter, it makes the head go up!" That's the kind of thing that really gets him excited. Here he is timing how fast his RoboXplorer can go 10 feet on different terrains... seriously! (Notice Sophie, this is regular acitivity for her, messing with whatever anyone is doing. Rascal!)

We also have a star in training. I say star in general, because from day to day (actually hour to hour), the kind of star changes from ballerina, to singer, to actress, to artist. For as intellectual as Hayden is, Ana is equally and oppositely creative. I'm not joking when I say that Ana sings or dances 90% of her day, no matter where she is or what she's doing. She loves to commentate her life through song - it's quite hilarious to listen to her sing about shoes, food, the toilet, her hair, and anything else that crosses her path on a given day. She is also very into creating things... anything and everything. I put together a craft center in our kitchen, because I was so sick of dragging out and cleaning up craft supplies that belonged elsewhere. It was one of the best ideas I have had in my mothering career thus far (I wonder how many hours it has saved me already?). And there is not a day that goes by that Ana is not into the craft center, creating one thing or another. Does anyone know if messiness usually goes with creativity?

I love my polar opposite children! I'm so grateful that assumptions aren't always the way it goes down, and that we have at least one right-brain and one left-brain running around our house... who knows if any of us have a whole brain!?!!