Mini-Me

A long while back, I was once asked what it was like to now have a little Mini-Me running around. Apparently, my friend thought that Brady and I had an uncanny resemblance. More than likely it was because at the time, we both had little to no hair.

(Sadly, she's now surpassed me in that aspect.)

In any case, I do realize now that I do have a Mini-Me of sorts running around. It's just not in the way that my friend had meant.

Now, I could just that she has many of the same interests that I had/have, like comics, science fiction, and pro wrestling (she's a BIG Undertaker fan). But, that would be the easy observation to make. Rather, I've really noticed as she's become older, there have been certain mental/behavioral/emotional cues that have caused me to...well...kinda get creeped out at how eerie the similarities truly are.

It's hard to describe in words what I'm talking about. I think the closest analogy would be when sports analysts talk about top players in their profession. A term that always comes up is the intangibles; the certain things that can't be explained, but "you know it when you see it."

There have been many a time when I've seen her react to a situation, or behave in certain circumstances where I just have to stop and ask myself, "was I really like that? Wow."

Some examples include:

• While she is much more of an extrovert than either Stacey or I are, she has absolutely no problem being by herself in her room just to be by herself.
• She has got one wild imagination.
• She has a tendency to be a hard read, emotionally. What I mean is she likes to keep her emotional cards close to her chest. She doesn't like to let you know that she's angry, even when it's clear that she is. I was told when I did that, I was bottling my emotions up.
• She has a tendency, when she's not sure how to act or what to say to just copy what she saw on television, and hope that would be sufficient. That was something I was definitely guilty of doing when I grew up.

...and so on.

Where I feel she is most like me is her desire to make everyone happy. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that she'll do everything in her power to make you laugh. The bad thing is she doesn't like to be the cause of unhappiness, so she'll a) take it really hard/personal, and b) be extremely accommodating to others, almost to the point where people could walk over her, just so that they could be happy. This is where I really feel I should apologize to her for my genes, because I know that I was like that growing up, and it was really tough.

Okay, yeah I can still be like that, but I'm a lot better than I used to be.

It's weird how, in a way, I'm going to be reliving my childhood through her. There are just so many similarities (gender aside) that I can't see how she doesn't go through the same trials and tribulations that I did.

That said, at least she has the good fortune of having her mom's genes as well. Brady is certainly as self-assured as Stacey said she was growing up, and Stacey certainly had no problem standing up to people when need be. Hopefully in that regard, Brady will be able to deal with her peers better than I did.

Or, maybe she'll make the best of what was given to her and she forges a path completely different than either of is. I mean, that's really what we all as parents want from our kids, right? Time will tell, I guess.

I have to say, though: it is weird seeing myself in a mirror every now and then. Even if that mirror is in the shape of a seven year old girl.