The Gender Difference

I have a son and I have a daughter. That means I have one of each. No need to say duh! out loud because I already said it to myself. I know that one daughter and one son means that I have two children, one of each sex. I've been lucky enough to get one of each with only two attempts at it. I often wonder though what it may have been like if I had two of the same sex, born close enough together to like each other enough to play Barbie, or trucks at the same time or at the very least, in the same room. The two I have don't like to play together very often and I'm left wondering about their differences. One is their age, the other is their gender. My girl, when she was Henry's age was delightful, smart, funny and cute but she also had that thing that only girls appear to have - a very short emotional fuse. She was active but wasn't trying to kill herself by climbing on ladders while carrying a screwdriver that she thought would help her fix the light socket. She was more of a sensitive, caring and temperamental child - meaning that she would scream the house down when she was tired and couldn't have chocolate for dinner.


Henry, my boy child, well he's just more like - look here you people, this is the way I like and this is the way it will be. There is no room for negotiation and if you try to stop me I will likely snub you for up to 24 hours.

Henry also NEVER SITS STILL EVER. He should have been born with a danger label stuck on his forehead and some yellow and black luminescent tape holding his legs and arms to his body rendering him incapable of jumping, climbing and running through automatically opening doors just as they're about to close. If someone had told me that I would be trading the emotional blackouts for having to constantly be on my guard in order to keep my child alive I would have made sure I gave birth to only a girl child. At least I could sit for hours with earplugs in my ears while Maya wailed about not being able to get Barbie's undies over her hips. With Henry I have to be on alert at all times. As a result of this not much gets done around here. Dinner has become a free for all - if you can find food that has not yet turned rotten, eat it but do it quick because you might have to save Henry from getting his head trapped in the washing machine.

I have a teenager and as far as teenagers go I couldn't ask for a better one. She's sensible, smart and thoughtful (I know this could end at any minute) but I just know I'm still going to have to follow Henry everywhere when he's Maya's age to make sure he comes home alive. Henry's smart and thoughtful too at age three but he just needs to fix things and he doesn't think yet about how he's going to fix them and I'm not sure he ever will.