My little people

You know one of my favorite things about watching my kids grow up... 

The minute a baby is born, it starts: He has his daddy's eyes! She has her grandma's nose! His head is shaped just like great-uncle Bob's!

As they grow, those features grow too, and may change, or may deepen in resemblance. But as they get older, their features really grow to look like... themselves. As we get to know them, they may still have mommy's mouth or daddy's hair, but increasingly, their features are their own, unimaginable in that particular combination on anyone else.

What I've started seeing, though, is that in their utterly unique personalities, they also have funny little habits that they've picked up/inherited from us. Eleanor squeaks "Oh my goodness!" or even "Goodness gracious!" with perfect inflection when something surprising happens, which she's picked up from... any number of people, actually. Steven plays with sounds like I do - he'll pick up a phrase and repeat it, then repeat it again with different consonant sounds beginning the words, then again with another consonant. He'll hum a song with nonsense syllables... num num num num num num num, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba, dee dee dee dee dee dee dee, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, num num num num num num num, la la la la la la la (Twinkle Twinkle/ABCs, if you're curious). 

Oh, and? He loses his mind over Aunt Suzy's buttercream.