Our kids are much younger, but Hawaii resembles Jammies in looks and personality, and Hokey Pokey resembles me in both ways. I'm not really tempted to identify with either of them - it's somewhat like Hawaii was so wildly unlike me in every possible way, that it disabused me of the notion that I have any trace in my children. (I was actually rather shaken for a long time by how unlike me she was. Also because she vehemently detested me for about a year and a half, starting when she was 12 months old.)

This didn't kick in for me until she was a lot older than yours are -- I don't have strong memories of being very young, and my parents don't have a lot of pictures. (And her main distinguishing characteristic as a baby/toddler was a completely ridiculous cloud of curly hair, which I never had -- hers has straightened to match mine over the years). It's really been noticeable since she was around ten or so.

It may be an unusual reaction that I have just because the resemblance is so strong; people comment on it a lot.

1: Does she look like the mailwoman?

I think I resemble both my parents more than my sister does. But maybe she would feel differently.

I worry about this quite a bit--my kids have both taken physical and mental traits from me and their mother equally, but with different mixes. I think my older daughter has inherited my vulnerabilty to depression. Something I'm keeping an eye on over the next decade, for sure.

I probably chatter less about it, but I'm equally enthralled by the way she's somehow picked up an interest in clothes and makeup, without much help from me, and by the way she sort of functions normally in social groups, as opposed to being the sort of withdrawn little nerd I was.

ISTM this is one of those things that self-assessment is particularly bad at. I know I've been wondering a lot over the past week or so about how accurate my beliefs about my personality are.

Also, I'm sure environmental causes make a big difference. I mean, did you grow up in an UMC family in the big city like your daughter is? Do you have only one, younger sibling? My dad grew up in stereotypical suburbia as the fourth of five siblings, but I grew up in a rural area as the first of two, and we're fairly different people. There's more to it than that, but it's probably involved.

Both urban apartment dwellers in a family of four -- she's the older of a boy and a girl, I was the younger of two girls.

I know what you mean about self-assessment; I still think of myself as way over on the introvertedly shy part of the spectrum, but I don't think people necessarily perceive me that way. But as a kid, I was legitimately very, very withdrawn and odd -- the kind of kid who people would be speculating (inaccurately) about autism-spectrum diagnoses, and she's not like that. While she's still a bit of an introvert or I wouldn't be seeing myself in her at all, she's not hiding in corners avoiding people the way I was.

I can already tell parenthood is going to be weird. Little Delightful is only 9 months old, but I'm already speculating on his personality and projecting things from mine. So far, he appears to lose interests in things quickly, screams loudly when he wants an adult to do something for him, enjoys being surrounded by adults who are talking and socializing, and protests whenever he is pressured to crawl anywhere (he prefers to either sit in one place or scoot along on his butt while sitting). Also, he poops in his pants. From these bare hints I have constructed a vast edifice of projection. Making things worse, I have near-zero experience with babies or toddlers making it hard to tell what is generally true and what is a specific indicator of personality.

I have one son and one daughter who resemble me and one daughter who claims not to look like anyone in the family, but clearly is. What I notice more than anything are the "bad" traits that I wish I could stamp out in myself rearing their ugly heads in my children. Fortunately the misery seems to be spread pretty evenly, for while one is moody the other is lazy, but both are not both.

Mara is like me in a lot of delightful and obviously coincidental ways, though I'm sure I've encouraged some of her interests. But that shr's always quietly singing to herself and much better at watching friends than making friends is very familiar and her taste in stories and so on is rather like mine was. Most of the things that drive Lee crazy about Nia are things that Lee also does, which is something our friends always point out to Lee. I have a harder time seeing myself in Nia, who's so friendly and outgoing and HELPFUL. I left them at my parents' house for an hour this weekend and Nia edged an entire garden bed just because it would make my mom happy and because doing new things is fun for her.

No one ever seems to think they're biologically mine, though I'm sure the three of them pass as a biological family when I'm not around. Every stranger in the world is sure the girls are twins. I'm not sure why that's the assumption rather than that they're same-age friends or something, but it is.

he prefers to either sit in one place or scoot along on his butt while sitting

A significant minority of kids do this until they start walking. Don't pressure him to crawl if he doesn't want to. One of these days he'll just stand up and walk fall over.

Hawaii was so wildly unlike me in every possible way, that it disabused me of the notion that I have any trace in my children.

Changelings, dude. Try her with some cold iron or something.

Kid C didn't bumshuffle, but he hated crawling, and between 8 and 9 months would crawl about the house moaning and groaning. Then at 9m2days, he clearly thought, fuck it, and got up and walked.

Apart from that, he's (now 12 and has) turned out to be a clone of my dad. Not so much in looks, though he's more my side of the family, but in spirit. He just spent the long weekend with my parents, with my dad teaching him about Turing machines, and him teaching my dad about Minecraft. Both very happy. Coming home, he was on the train for 2.5 hours alone, and passed the time writing a Turing machine programme to work out the number of steps that the machine would take to subtract n from m.

Kid A used to be more like me, but diverged and is very loud and confident and dramatic. Possibly obnoxiously so if she weren't so lovely. We still like a lot of the same things though, watch tv together and talk about books.

Kid B is C all over - grumpy, music-obsessed introvert who panics when faced with anything new. (But will go to gigs alone.) I find it harder to be sympathetic to her than to him - I guess I accepted that he was like he is, but thought I would have more of a chance to mold her.

Kid D is her own person. Perhaps being the baby and being adored and doted on gives you a bit more freedom that way. She's the most normal and tolerant of us all too, I think.

In 2027 (thirty years after the last of the kids attained her majority), my parents' weekly child-reports will be released by the lawyers. Then we can see what they really thought of us at the time.

Neither of mine ever crawled or really bumshuffled in an organized way either. Pretty much, they stayed where you put them until about a year old, at which point they got up and started walking. I was considering worrying about this at the time, but never really got around to it, and then it turned out not to have been a problem.

Are there separate entities "C" and "Kid C" in 13? I think so, but just making sure.

I didn't walk until 14 months. My mom was just as happy for me to be stationary, but her mom considered it a scandal that I couldn't walk. As soon as mom went into the hospital to have my brother, grandma taught me to walk.

I will build Zardoz robot legs if she needs 'em as a stopgap. They probably won't work right but who is she to be picky?

Ah yes, C is their father. We labelled them thus because Kid A the Radiohead album came out the same month as baby #3, so he was dubbed Kid C.

15: I was reportedly similar on the talking front. Nothing but seemingly nonsense 'vroom-vroom' car noises to the point that my parents began to worry. Then full sentences.

Bollocks.

I was such a bossy toddler that I wouldn't actually let my little brother up off the floor, so my parents used to wake him up for walking practice after I'd gone to sleep.

O was an extremely proficient (and early) crawler and climber, and as such I think didn't see much point to walking, which he didn't do til about 13 mos.

My eldest was a relatively late walker; he compensated by being quite proficient at bear walking/crawling, which he was faster at than most of his peers were at walking. Forget exactly how long that lasted--not this long.

There's nothing good about early walking (except that the grumbling stopped) because 9 month old babies are pretty stupid and walk into things and off things even more than older toddlers do.

Yeah, the slight pressure we put on him to crawl has only made more work for us as it is now slightly more possible for him to kill himself if we're not paying attention. He did spontaneously crawl some distance this morning to pick up a dollar bill I dropped and jam it into his mouth, so he clearly has an aptitude for business.

We have fallen into that thing of worrying about not crawling or walking by a particular time but it's really quite silly. As I told my wife, think of the stupidest person you know, even they are quite competent at walking, so chances are he will be too. And crawling is not a life skill at all really.

BTW, the link in 23 is worth a click. Quadrupedal adults. And there apparently was a BBC documentary.

25.last: Don't click the link.

26: I have seen that! I had a cat with the same thing (cerebellum hypoplasia).

Someone gave us essentially a lazy susan when Hawaii was slow to crawl. You were supposed to put her on her tummy, and then she'd spin herself with her arms and get motivated by her locomotion to try to crawl. I thought it was stupid and meddlesome of them. Plus she hated it.

But cats always go around on four legs. How could you tell?

29: Could you use it at dinner? If we had a round table, I'd really like one. Passing stuff is a pain when children are at the table.

Having a lentil for a cerebellum has many effects. (He shook -- what are called "intention tremors." He couldn't jump or walk a straight line. Among other things.)

The part that looks most uncomfortable about that bear crawl is having to hold your neck up to see where you're going. I suppose you get used to anything.

Our kids (adopted as infants in the early 90s - yes I know they're not kids any more) look nothing like ms bill and me but share some of our physical mannerisms. My daughter, the older, has taken on a very discernible mix of our habits, good and bad. My son, who came to us 20 years ago this week (yay!), takes after ms bill far more than me, and is really influenced by his sister. It may be projection, but I often see in them more of our parents - their grandparents - than us.

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So I have a hotel room reserved for Unfoggedycon, but will be bringing the boy to town, and am having no luck so far with babysitting for Saturday night. If anyone in the DC area knows a good sitter, or knows someone else who might and can make inquiries for me, I'd be much obliged.

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29: I thought it was stupid and meddlesome of them.

Quite.

Re-gifting to the givers protip: Paint "Spin me before giving someone an annoyingly presumptuous gift" in the middle and divide it into four wedges with the following advice:

1) Don't.
2) Take a sit on a meathook while you contemplate your true motives in giving this gift.
3) You suck.
4) Really, just don't.

I have a hotel room reserved for Unfoggedycon

That reminds me that I still need to book mine. Where are you staying?

36: Nice to see JP back and in classic form.