My kids.

Zane is my 3 year old. He and his sister Lena, nearly 11, could not be more different. Every day I sit back and wonder how I got 2 such different kids. Lena has always been the follower. All I had to do was bend down, whisper some threatening words into her ear and she would stop what ever offending deed she was performing at that moment. With Zane, just lately have we been able to use the whisper trick, but only by saying You are embarrassing ME and Yourself. You better stop it now. Otherwise he just looks at us like, HA! Just try to stop me!
There are two other things that sets my two kids apart. One is naps. Lena was a terrible sleeper. Horrible. I was so sleep deprived for YEARS that I thought I would never catch up. I used to sneak in personal naps by having her play beauty salon with me. She would literally sit for 30-45 minutes coming my hair. To get her down for a nap was just so much of a battle that I wish I hadn't fought so hard. She NEEDED a nap, but when it took her 2 hours to fall asleep, CLEARLY it wasn't time for a nap.
Zane? He LOVES naps. Just today I was telling him he needed to finish up his apple because it was nap time. He stood up, gave me the left over apple and announced,  I LOVE naps! They make me feel so good! (visualize him hugging himself with his cheek tucked to his shoulder.) He quite often will tell ME that it's bed time and could he please go to bed? o_O Say WHAT!?

Another thing is art. Lena is my little artist. We could and do sit for hours doing art projects. Every day when I would pick her up from preschool her cubby would be FILLED with drawings. We could do play-dough for days and she would never get tired of it. Zane however... His idea of art is to destroy. I tried the other day to do some tear art with him. We painted some tree trunks (frustration has begun before step one has been completed) and tore up different colored paper for the leaves. That took longer than expected as he got super frustrated (AKA crying and grunting at the paper) by the "unripable paper". Ok, so let me finish ripping the paper so we can move on (screaming, why can't he just CUT it!!!). Put glue all over the top for where the leaves go, (crying that he just wants to take a box and cut it up with scissors!!!) Me getting beyond frustrated with the entire stupid idea at this point but I was trying to make it look fun and sooo easy!! At this point he is sobbing. He doesn't want to do tear art, he wants to chop a box up and paint it!!!! Enter the terrible mom who should have been put into time out with a box full of chocolates and just handed him the freaking box and paints and called it a day until nap time.
And then today. He got out his paint and announced he wanted to paint. Ok, fine. Got his paint set up, let him go at it while I was making lunch. He then comes to me with the BIGGEST smile on his face and gleam in his eyes. Hey mom!!? Did you know that you can like paint your entire body? Your hair, your face? Everything!!? OMG. ok, no paint is visible yet. Oh, really sweetie? Deep breath Erin, it's ok... So I calmly removed his shirt and told him he would have to take a bath afterwards.. OK! He said running off. I hear giggling from the table but refuse to spy. Let him be creative, let him be free to make weird choices.. IT'S OK! He comes running in with about 5" of his arm painted and proudly shows me. It's SOOO COOOL!!!!
He then gets a wipey and cleans himself up. Then brings all his paint to the kitchen and wanders off to do something else.
How could 2 kids be SO different!!