This isn’t a parenting blog, but now that I’m a parent… I can’t completely avoid the topic either. Well, I suppose I could… I just don’t want to! My kid is all kinds of awesome.

My husband has dark hair and dark eyes. When I was pregnant, he often said that his traits would be more dominant in our baby because, as he so eloquently phrased it, “You’re a whole mess of recessive genes.” Yes, with my blonde hair and blue eyes, I do have recessive genes. And if we go by the stuff I learned in my high school AP Biology class while using Punnett Squares to plot out the possibilities with hair/eyes… it was easy to think our kid was going to be more like her daddy.

Yet our little girl has crystal clear blue eyes, they’re bluer than my eyes… much more like others in my family. (My eyes are slightly green-blue.)

I struggle to see either my husband or me in her, she just seems very much like her own unique little person to me. I think her hair is about the same color as my hair currently is. So she’s not as tow-headed as I was as a baby. But she definitely seems to have the same hair growth pattern as me. I shared this picture on Instagram yesterday for #ThrowbackThursday… neither of us have long, lush locks in the pic! When I look at this side-by-side, I can see some similarities, but also a very distinct kid there.

//instagram.com/p/dnpuhAKz5y

I’m okay with her having my hair, or my eyes. But there are things that I definitely hope I don’t pass along to her.

• Clumsiness: I run into everything. It’s amazing that I haven’t broken more bones than my stress fracture. I often think that I bruise for no reason… but I probably have run into something and just don’t remember it! There’s a reason I don’t play many sports, my coordination levels are terrible. Even running in a straight line trips me up sometimes. (Literally… I’ve tripped while running far more times than I should!)
• Scarring: I scar so easily. If I get a papercut, I end up with a scar. (Well… that’s a wee bit of an exaggeration. But not far from the truth.) She’s got such beautiful baby skin, I hate for it to get marred up by time. I know it will to some extent, scars are life’s tattoos. But I really hope she doesn’t end up with as much scarring as I have!
• Lactose Intolerance/Poor Digestion: So far, she seems to be a lot better off in this area than I am. That doesn’t keep me from worrying. She threw up this week on Monday and Tuesday (Ah… baby’s first vomit!) and I was freaking out. My mom told me that every kid gets an upset stomach from time-to-time… it doesn’t necessarily mean that she is malfunctioning on a regular basis like I am! And since then she has seemed fine, but I still worry!
• Eating Disorder/Body Dissatisfaction: This is scary because it’s two-fold… messages at home and messages in the world. The world is getting to be a meaner and meaner place in terms of what is “acceptable” in terms of the human form. But I also want to be very cautious in the language I use at home and not refer to myself or anyone else as fat/ugly/less than in any way because I believe messages at home play a huge role. And it isn’t just language I use, it comes from actions as well. People who serve their family one food while they eat something else because that is the “bad” food, that is a negative message too.

It’s completely mind-blowing to me that she is one now. She is still so dependent on us, yet she’s also her own little person. I love watching her walk around the house. I marvel at how she can climb off the couch. Yet someday, those will be commonplace and I probably won’t think anything about them. I’m trying not to think too much about the future, but it’s hard to not let it slip in every now and then.  But for now, the present moment with her is pretty good!