Boys and Girls

A few years back, Sheryl and I built a wooden swingset in our back yard. I think Kinsey was about 3 when we did it. It has a slide and some swings and stuff. It's pretty neat.

Kinsey has never been very brave about it. When she was 3 or 4, she would get very timid about climbing up the little ladder to the platform to slide down. I'd have to pick her up and help her up and stuff like that. Kinsey's never been extremely brave anyway. My joke has been that she'll never be a mountain climber and she's perfectly fine with that.

On the other hand, there's Connor who seems perfectly willing to take a bump on the head or scrape in the pursuit of fun. He's jumped off the steps of the porch, fallen off high chairs, and bumped heads. Last night, we were on the swing set and Connor decided he wanted to "s'ide" (this was after I told him we were going outside and he jumped around like he'd just won the Superbowl [or Euro 2008, if you prefer]). The first time, he needed a little help getting up the ladder to the platform. He asked for it and I put my hand on his back and he just scooted right up. And did it again and again and again. And got a little upset when it was time to go inside.

I'm a little bit cautious at assigning this as the difference between boys and girls. It could be simply the difference between a first child and second child. But I also don't want to say that there's nothing different between a boy and girl, because there clearly are, in toy preferences and Connor's interest in large, loud vehicles and Kinsey in princesses.

I guess I say all that to say that it's very interesting to have a girl and boy. And it's going to continue to be interesting to see how much they are alike and how different they will be.