Thursday, August 30, 2007

Where did our genes go wrong?

Mom kisses Dova

It is so easy to spot characteristics in Adam that come from his mom and dad. He loves math (mom), cars (dad), organization (mom) and has excellent mechanical abilities (mom and dad). Dova, on the other hand, has characteristics that are totally foreign to us. We should have known when she was born with green (or dark grey) eyes. I couldn't believe that a baby that was half Chinese could have green eyes!

Mom with her green-eyed baby

Sure she looks like a mix of mom and dad now and has a few characteristics that we identify in ourselves such as intelligence, well-spoken (dad), and love of classical music (mom - Adam loves jazz like dad). However...

She is not mechanical or spatial at all. It took her well into her 2's to figure out how to turn a doorknob. She would jiggle it back and forth and never get the door open. She still can't figure out how to put on her underwear. She'll show it to me backwards and I'll tell her to turn it around and she'll cross her arms and say "Like this?" When she puts it on, she'll uncross her arms and have it backwards again. And forget it if she gets it sideways and has to turn it a quarter turn. She likes to remove her pants and underwear completely when she uses the potty, so you can imagine how frustrating it has been getting her to redress herself 5 times a day for the LAST 5 MONTHS. confused

She can't tell cars apart for the life of her. She'll see a Grand Am on the road and call it a Corvette. Of our three cards, a BMW, Corvette and Toyota Echo, her favorite is the Echo. rolleyes

She has a warped sense of organization. She loves to use anything and everything as a container. She'll put toy food in her princess purse, my knitting into a stuffed animal pocket, clothes into a paper folder, etc. It is nearly impossible to imagine and find where she stashes stuff.

She loses stuff and doesn't care. Adam, like us, becomes obsessed with anything he loses until he finds it. Dova loses stuff at an alarming rate and she'll just shrug her shoulders and say "I lost it!" We tell her that she needs to care for and keep track of her things so now she'll say "I'm sorry I lost it." Hardly an improvement.

She can be very mean when she gets mad or tired. She'll hit, kick and push people away, tell them to leave, and say that she doesn't love them. evil It has been really hard to change this behavior.

Well despite her differences, she is extremely lovable. When she is sweet, there is no sweeter girl in the world. She loves to snuggle all the time, unlike Adam, who squirmed away even when he was a baby. It could be that Doug, Adam and I are all first borns (first and only in my case, which is supposedly an extreme first born) so we have no idea how these later siblings work. I guess we just need to learn her quirks and unfamiliar ways and stop wondering where these foreign genes came from.

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