So different

Sometimes I wonder if my kids make a deliberate effort to be such polar opposites.

You wouldn’t pick them as siblings on their looks and you certainly wouldn’t on their likes.

But I remind myself they’ve been this way since birth.

For example, as soon as the eldest could crawl, they’d seek out books and demand someone read to them. If we tried reading a book to the youngest, she’d take it from our hands and throw it away.

I’ve often pondered whether having a third child would solve the mystery of the first two. But that ship has long sailed. So I’m left to bemusedly observe my offspring as they forge their very separate paths.

One has long, blonde hair that they refuse to trim, which they meticulously groom every night. There was quite the to-do yesterday when the brush went missing.

The other has a pair of hair clippers and cuts their own short, red locks. They shaved a chunk off the other night.

One dresses exclusively in shorts, mini skirts and crop tops.

The other wears combat pants, Sid Vicious  T-shirts and baggy hoodies.

One goes to skipping practice four times a week and netball twice a week.

The other sleeps a lot.

The youngest went to a beauty expo called Meccaland on Sunday.

She came home clutching handfuls of free samples and showing off all the Instagrammy moments of herself posing on slippery dips and pouting in fancy hanging chairs.

She was giddy with delight over a fancy lip balm and spritzed me with a cucumber spray she’d bought.

The eldest, on the other hand, is more of a tattoo convention kinda kid and headed to one last month.

In fact, the eldest wants to become a tattoo artist, while the youngest is keen on kindergarten teaching as a career.

The eldest shudders at the mere thought of small children.

While I see glimpses of odd-bod teenaged me in the eldest and absolutely nothing of odd-bod teenaged me in the youngest, the youngest is probably closer to me in temperament.

We get each other, while the eldest often seems like an exotic creature from another world.

At the same time, I love how completely individual they both are – and I’m glad they feel so confident to be themselves in such separate ways.

Are your kids polar opposites?

Song of the day: The Who “Who are you?”