Jennifer's Emotional Exhaustion and the Gorman Children

First of all, Jennifer - squirrels do not do laundry. I am sorry that I had to be the one to break it to you. You need a couple of dwarves. With Snow White finally hooked up with that two-timing Prince Charming (you all forgot about Cinderella), the dwarves are primed to learn some serious life skills. Given the way I feel about laundry, and the hour at which we usually end up folding it, may I suggest hiring Grumpy and Sleepy?

The Gorman children...Jesse has always been verbal. I have a list on my computer at the Pride of the 41 reasons to have children. I wrote it as a response to the waste of paper that the therapist and mother of two in France/Belgium wrote on the 40 reasons not to have children. At some point, I will have Jennifer send me that list, and I will publish it here. Anyway, one of my reasons has to do with marvelling while watching a child speak for an hour without inhaling. Yes...I had Jesse in mind. He spoke early. He spoke clearly. He had (and still has) an exceptional vocabulary. I remember an incident prior to his second birthday. He had dropped something on the floor, and could not get out of the high chair to reach it. He said something to me, which I missed. He said it again, and again I missed. He finally pointed at it and said "can't reach."

Gavi came out looking for a meal and a fight. Of the three children, he is the most adventurous eater, always willing to try something new. He enjoys spicy food, and is now learning the art of the barbecue. When he was crawling, I was still wrestling with Jesse. Suddenly, this little baby is in the middle of it. That rough-and-tumble nature has not left him. He got in trouble in pre-school for wrestling with one of the other boys (it was mutual. The other kid got in trouble too). He has had more black eyes than the other two children, combined. I walk into his room in the morning. He awakens instantly, with a stuffed animal flying through the air towards my head.

And then there is Keren. Keren is more expressive than Gavi. At her age, Jesse would still throw tantrums. Keren's expressiveness sometimes locks out reason. Yesterday morning, she was reading at the kitchen table before school. It was time to go. She had not finished. She threw a tantrum, because she could not go - in someone else's car - until she finished her homework. Reason would not sway her.

In short, my faith in genetics extends only as far as looks. The three of them look alike. It is clear that they are siblings. Temperament...focus....specific intelligences...disposition...logic suggests that they should have something in common, given that the 46 chromosomes that are at the root of their genetic matter came from the same place.