Nurture vs. Nature

I truly am amazed by my son each and every day, and it astonishes me to realize he is 4 weeks old today. Sometimes it feels like we just brought him home from the hospital.

The most fascinating thing to me over these weeks has been to look at him every day and try and figure out who he is, who he looks like, who he acts like, and who he might be one day. Why is this fascinating to me? At 4 weeks old, there are specific lessons that my son has learned. He's refining his motor skills, discovering his hands and feet, strengthening his muscles and finding his voice. We're helping to teach him these things and encouraging him to develop these skills.

However, there are a lot of things we've seen in him that we haven't taught him. The faces he makes while he's sleeping. The way he stretches when he's waking up. The way he fights falling asleep as if he is going to miss something. His stubbornness and insistence on doing more than we'd expect, and doing for himself. These things, while part of who he is, are also parts of my husband and I. The faces he makes are the mirror image of his daddy. He couldn't act more like me when he's waking up if he tried. His desire to stay awake is all me. And his stubbornness, well both daddy and I are guilty of that trait. It's amazing that these traits and manerisms are just inate in Brody. It's amazing that at 4 weeks he's already demonstrated so clearly to me that there truly are things that are just part of nature and who we are as people.

While my husband and I will nurture him and hope and pray that he becomes a loving, wonderful, caring boy, and will do everything in our power to help him along the way... there are so many things that are a part of him because they are a part of us. Just as he has Tony's forehead and face, and my nose and eyes, he has so many other parts of us too. Truly amazing and miraculous.