377. Why Octopus and Snail

You might not guess from the totes adorbs photo above that these two are "one of each," but in so many ways, they are. I always thought it was funny when other people with two children said they had "one of each." They always seemed to mean that they had one who came out with girl parts and one with boy parts. We had two whom we identified as girls, but in every personality category you might name, we felt we had one of each.

From the beginning, even though I think we parented them about the same way, we had the following:

• one introvert, one extrovert
• one night owl, one morning lark
• one rule follower, one rule breaker
• one picky eater, one experimenter
• one sweet tooth, one salt lover
• one who liked team sports, one who liked individual ones

You get the idea. Additionally, though both came out as white and female, we noticed these physical differences:

• one brown hair, one blonde
• one curly hair, one straight
• one with hazel eyes, one with green
• one quite tall, one petite

Even while they slept, they were distinct. One of these two sleeps like an octopus and the other like a snail.

Okay, to be fair, I have no idea how they sleep these days, as I took this photo two decades ago, but at that point, true fact. When we'd take family trips, we would usually get one hotel room with two queen-sized beds. Each of us parents would share a bed with one of the littler people. One of them would curl into a ball and not move until morning. She took up almost no space at all. The other seemed to sprout extra limbs that flopped and flayed, wiggled and wormed around on the bed. She'd take all the space.

It makes for an interesting ride to have more than one kiddo. Most of what I learned about parenting in round one didn't make sense for my subsequent child. At the same time, what a joy it was and still is to get to know them both as individuals! What an adventure raising little humans is! I feel so lucky to get to have these two wonderful people (now fully adults) in my life.

And, though they're so different in some ways, they're exactly the same in others:

• both are kind
• both are smart
• both like STEM more than humanities (alas, poor me)
• both read (though different genres)
• both are generous
• both are funny
• both are loving
• both are thoughtful

I could go on. So, if you think you're doing the same thing twice when you decide to have subsequent kiddos and the later ones come out with the same parts as the earlier, think again. You too might end up with one octopus and one snail. If you're lucky.

Please share any responses in the comments.