Hanging Ten

AutismVox, MomNOS, One March Day...all writing great posts about 10 ways in which they are similar to their children. I've been pondering this for a few hours now; for some reason all I can come up with are ways Grant and I are different. So, I'm going to cheat a bit and list 10 ways I'm similar to each of my kids.

1. Cassidy and I love to sleep in; it's really more than that though. We don't do mornings. Rolling out of bed is probably the hardest thing we do all day. We're generally a bit grumpy for the first 20-30 minutes of the day. Nobody enjoys trying to wake us up in the morning.

2. Grant and I love to swim. Actually, our whole family loves to swim, but I think Grant and I enjoy it the most. Grant looks like he is at peace when he's in the water; there is no stimming, no agitation, no concern. Swimming is a huge release for me; if I'm bottling anything up, it just leaks right out of my pores when I get in the pool. It's impossible to be upset when we are in the pool.

3. Owen and I love to make people laugh. He's the comedian in the family; he can find humor in just about anything and is continually finding new ways to express it. I'm more of the one-liner, dry humor kind of guy, but we both enjoy getting the laugh.

4. Cassidy and I love reading. Similar to Grant's sense of peace in the pool, reading feels that way for me. Watching Cassidy branch out in her reading reminds me so much of myself at that age - read anything and everything all the time!

5. Grant and I love In-N-Out Burger. Ok, this is an entire 'family' love. One of the few things Grant is able to eat 'out' is their fries and he devours them. We eat there just about every Sunday on the way home from church - double double animal style for me, grilled cheese w/ onions for Staci, plain grilled cheese for Cassidy and Owen and fries for all (2 for Grant). MMMMMM :)

6. Owen and I can fall asleep anywhere. Two of my more infamous locations are on the kitchen floor while fixing a dishwasher (Staci woke me up in the morning and I still had the screwdriver in my hand) and sitting at the kitchen island with my forehead on the granite (this was just last week!).

7. Cassidy, Grant, Owen and I love to play video games. For Grant, it's an activity which puts him on a near-level playing field with his siblings. We play together, we play alone, but we all get great enjoyment from it. The Atari 2600 is one of my favorite childhood memories - will the Wii be the same for my kids?

8. Cassidy and I enjoy playing with kids. For whatever reason, we seem to be more comfortable with kids than with people our own age. I've been working in children's ministry for years now, and Cassidy is following right along. She is also assisting a couple of times a week at Grant's speech therapist's office - she's a natural!

9. Grant and I love coffee. I love the taste and the way it clears my fog in the morning. Grant can't drink it, but he is fascinated by how the coffee pot works and he's become quite the little coffee server on Saturday mornings.

10. Owen and I are "the different kids" from our families. I was the middle son but completely different from my two brothers. Owen is the youngest, but his personality is so completely different from Cassidy and Grant's. I'm more 'low key' than my brothers, while Owen is much more animated, 'type A', and fearless than his siblings.

Let me know if you write up your own list of 10!