Daddy/Daughter Similarities- By Kevin

When I started this blog, I really thought that both Kevin and me would be posting updates on our adoption.  Well, that didn't happen.  This turned into MY blog, and that's okay!  However, Kevin DID write this up a few days ago about the things that he and Kate (5.5 months) already have in common and I thought I'd share.  So, here it is...

Even though Kate isn’t our biological child, I’ve noticed some things we have in common. As time goes on, she’ll obviously learn to do many things like Kelley and me, and she'll like many of the things we like. But, she already has similarities that aren’t conditioned, but natural. Yes, these are just chance things, and lots of people have these same similarities, but, I like to play them up because she’s our daughter. She’s already just like me in a variety of ways. Here are a few:

1. Terrible bed hair. When I was little, my dad told me all the time, “Your hair looks like a rat’s nest.” I didn’t know what a rat’s nest looked like, but looking in the mirror, I knew that it didn’t mean “neat.” Even now, as I lose my hair, what I have still gets terribly messed up in my sleep unless I keep it cut very short. Kate is following in my footsteps. She had a lot of hair when she was born. Everyone told us she’d lose it, but she didn’t. It doesn’t get as messed up now that it’s getting longer, but she’s not out of the woods yet.

2. Stomach sleeping. Maybe Kate got sick of sleeping on her back for the first 4 months of her life, but as soon as she got strong enough to roll to her stomach, she started doing it. Constantly. She wakes up on her stomach now just about every nap. She can’t roll back to her back from her stomach, yet, and that really frustrates her. I’ve been a stomach sleeper all my life, and I don’t do it on purpose. When I was a kid I often woke up on my stomach, sleeping on my arms, which were wrapped underneath my pillow – and I’d have a “crick” in my neck, a muscle spasm from awkward sleeping. Sometimes these “cricks” would last for several days, so I tried never to sleep on my stomach. Nevertheless, that’s how I woke up most mornings. Now as an adult, stomach sleeping doesn’t give me “cricks” in the neck, but a sore lower back. I got really good at sleeping on my back and STAYING on my back in my adult years, but after marrying Kelley, she discovered that I snore much worse on my back. And I started getting pushed, kicked, or whatever it took to make me roll over. So now, because Kelley can’t deal with snoring, I re-formed my bad habit of stomach sleeping and often deal with a sore lower back. In fact, we’re buying a brand new king mattress this week to replace our 4-year old mattress. The “old” mattress is structurally sound – we had it inspected – but the top layer of cushioning has my body impression in it, which is about a 1.5 inch “hole.” So stomach sleeping makes my back cave in and therefore, makes me really sore.

Now why we need a king mattress is a story for another day. Kelley is 5’1” and not even 100lbs. There’s enough room in our bed for 2-3 more people. But she has to have her space. I’m not complaining. I need mine, too. I slept by myself from age six to age 34. Space is good.

3. In junior high, we got to go outside for lunch or after we finished our lunch. I recognized that every day when I walked outside on a sunny day, I sneezed 2-3 times. I still do that. And Kate does the same thing. That’s probably pretty common. But it makes me feel good when we both sneeze after walking out into the sun.

4. I had laser eye surgery when I was 27. From that day forward, I’ve worn sunglasses just about every day – even on cloudy days. The surgery decreased my ability to handle sun or glare. Kelley picks on me for buying sunglasses. I like sport sunglasses (wraparound type), but sometimes they just don’t fit the occasion. So I but a few new pair every year. It looks like we’re going to have to start buying them for Kate, too. She can’t stand the sun shining in her eyes – at all. She flips her head around trying to get away from it, and she can turn her head almost backwards.

5. Cold hands and feet. Kate’s hands and feet are naturally cold. Kelley says it’s because I keep the house at 69 in the winter, but she had cold hands and feet in the summer when the house was 72. My hands are cold no matter what. Every week at church our praise band and pastors meet to go over the worship order and pray. We hold hands, and unfortunately, somebody has to hold mine. I’ve heard this at least a billion times: “Cold hands, warm heart.” Maybe my cold hands and feet are another reason Kelley insisted on a king bed.

6. Impatience. Apparently, I’m not a patient person. At least, that’s what I’m told. Regularly. It’s one of my major character flaws. I don’t pray for patience, though. God is working on me in enough ways! Kate has ZERO patience. It mainly centers around her bottle. And her pacifier. And the new solids she’s been getting. If the spoon isn’t coming fast/often enough, she wraps her hands around it and yanks it towards her mouth. Hopefully her patience problem will be limited to food.

7. Sports on TV. Kate loves watching sports on TV, even GOLF. I get the sports thing: there’s lots of fast action. But golf? She’ll even watch someone line up a putt. She watches SportsCenter, PTI, Around the Horn – and all of those shows have guys in suits talking. And it’s not just because that’s what I like. We’ve tested this by changing channels. She prefers sports over kid shows and cartoons. God knew what He was doing when He gave us Kate.

I discovered one thing yesterday that Kate DOESN’T have in common with me: she has stinky feet. She doesn’t even walk yet, so what’s the deal? I got cheated in lots of areas physically, but one thing I GOTwas NON-STINKY FEET. Maybe it’s just because I learned not to wear shoes without socks, but I can wear a pair of Nikes for 3 years and they just never stink, and neither do my feet. I brag about it. You have to celebrate the little victories. Kate will just have to struggle through life, I guess.