When your kids are little, you can't help but dreaming and imagining what they are going to be like when they grow up. Is he going to have my smile? Is she going to look like me? Are my sons going to get their daddy's sense of humor? Some times you wonder where they got their chin from or whose beautiful, long fingers found their way onto your baby's hand. It's like a daily discovery watching your child grow and trying to figure out where all the facets of them came from.
Even with all the things we delight in seeing in our children, there are inevitably things we hope they don't get from us. We might hope they avoid getting the crooked teeth or the myopic eyes. We hope that some miracle lets our child inherit grandpa's mellow singing voice instead of our flat as a pancake singing voice. Sadly, and it some cases, thankfully, we don't get a vote as to what our children inherit. It's random chance what our kids get from us.
One thing I never found myself hoping for, never found myself imagining was what if my babies inherit my migraines or gee I hope they get my asthma. Luckily, none of them seem to have gotten my asthma (why do I always hear miasma when I say my asthma). Sadly, though, 2 out of my 3 kids have inherited my weather induced migraines and this week has been a real bitch for them. I fucking hate seeing my children in pain, especially when I can't make that damned pain go away and I know they got it from me. I think knowing they got this medical issue from me bothers me more than seeing tough personality quirks they might have got from me. Personality quirks can be dealt with. You can learn to work around personality quirks or possibly even learn to exploit them and use them to your advantage. My poor sons can't avoid the migraines since their trigger is the weather, something they have NO control over, and I sure as hell don't see any way the migraines can be used to their advantage. And, it truly sucks beyond belief that I can't make this lovely inherited trait go away.
What characteristics do you hope your kids (current, future, adopted, whatever) get from you and what do you hope and pray they avoid?
