Family Ties

It's funny that while Eli is only 7 1/2 months old, we definitely notice familiar traits...

He and Ben both like a variety of foods (though he has recently declared his distate for baby food, and any time we try to feed it to him he presses his lips together). Eli currently enjoys bananas, turkey, cheerios, fruit puffs, avocado, apples, and bread. He loves being in the jumper, and Ben's mom always says Ben was a fan of a similar thing when he was a baby.

On the other hand, I see a lot of myself in Eli - he resists going to sleep, no matter how tired he is... sometimes he stares pretty seriously (Ben says I do this to him sometimes when I'm waiting for him to answer a question or say something). Eli is very determined and insistent (sometimes I am this way to a fault). Eli hates pears - and my Gram and I hate pears too). We both have long toes and sleep on our stomachs.

I've also been thinking about my similarities with my brother. Davey is my one and only sibling and a complex character. He is mentally handicapped and has had a slew of health issues, one of which included a long fight with leukemia that started when he was 4 and I was 8 years old. I ended up being his bone marrow donor, and this probably has no real relevance, but sometimes I wonder if some of my kooky traits were passed on in the transplant. Davey and I are both picky eaters and passionately hate certain foods. We love reading the newspaper (including perusing the Sunday ads), getting the mail, and browsing the internet for good deals. And we both can be a little intense. :)

Okay, so some of those things we may have picked up from my parents or from being around each other growing up. But it's sometimes a little strange watching my brother do the same exact things that I do!