Distant Relatives

I can relate to my daughter Toni in, like, four ways. Maybe five. She is female. I’m female. She’s the oldest child. I’m the oldest child. She digs Duncan Sheik. I find his voice completely mesmerizing as well. She can eat an onion like an apple. I can eat an onion like an apple… in theory. Plus we both keep a journal of Words We Find Interesting. Only mine’s in my head.

I can relate to my son Jonah in three ways and three ways only The first: As much as we WISH we could be morning people, the bottom line is that it takes a good 45 minutes (and, in my case, two cups of nuclear-strength coffee) to acclimate to a new day… 15 additional minutes in the winter. The second: We both have as much fashion sense as a slice of bologna… in a drunken stupor. Lastly, we do not do the multi-tasking very well… unless it involves rubbing our bellies and patting our heads to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb. Otherwise, not so much.

I can relate to my third child Emma in two ways. We are girls, the both of us. And we both love her father so much that our hearts develop large, oozing sores when he’s away.

But Kyra. Hmm... Well, there’s no denying she’s a girlie…. OH! And we both know all the words to “Over My Head” by The Fray. She, too, misses her father when he's away but, like most people who are not in her line of vision, she seems to move on with relative ease. Aside from all that, we are basically people from two separate hemispheres of the universe. It still boggles my mind that she possesses a good HALF of my genes AND lounged around in my body for the first nine months of her life, making herself downright comfortable on my bladder and other pertinent organs whilst she was there. And yet, I can sit at my computer for half an hour trying to draw parallels between us and only come up with a love for The Fray. For one, she LOVES water. As in the kind you swim in and splash in and sit in until your lips are the color of a ripe, summer plum. I just don’t know what it feels like to NOT CARE about temperature. Or water in the nostrils. I also have no idea what it feels like to be the youngest child. And the spoiled rottenest child. Also, I don’t know how a person eats comfortably with both hands. And feet, too. Or how it feels to have skin so sensitive to sunlight that a mole will immediately form after 20 seconds over the recommended daily allowance of UV ray exposure. I can’t FATHOM mixing my applesauce with my macaroni and cheese and eating two cups worth in five seconds flat. Nor can imagine deriving any enjoyment whatsoever from sleeping with my butt up in the air and my right arm twisted behind my back and through my legs twice. I look at this girl who ONLY resembles me in the color of her eyes and hair… and I wonder how it is possible that tomorrow she is two. T-W-O! TWO! So. Happy Birthday, beautiful baby Kyra with the big, brown eyes who spends all her free time twirling in circles and eating crumbs from the kitchen floor while telling imaginary doggies to go home. May you always and forever be my polar opposite.