Sheldon, Shel Silverstein and the Tazmanian Devil

The vast difference in the personalities of my two children provides never-ending entertainment in my house. I was already aware of the differences, but there was a moment Monday evening when it was so profound, that I just had to write it down.

Noah is my "old soul". He's particular, picky, set-in-his-ways, cantankerous and doesn't like change. Zoe is a free spirit. She rolls with the punches, is generally happy and bubbly, a little rough and tough and filled with mischief.

In short, here is Noah :

(That's the character Sheldon Cooper played by Jim Parsons on the Big Bang Theory. If you haven't watched the show, you really should. It's hilarious and Sheldon is a spitting image of Noah's future persona.)

Here is Zoe:

Back to Monday evening. Noah was wrapping up his day of complaining by listing all the reasons why he couldn't go outside. His collection of excuses suddenly reminded me of the Shel Silverstein poem, "Sick". So, I retrieved my book of Shel Silverstein's poems, located that particular one and read it to Noah. He loved it! He asked me to read more to him and so we began thumbing through the book and selecting and reading more of his poems.

At one point, Noah asked me to speak up because he couldn't hear me. I did notice the sudden high volume of noise in the room and stopped to look around. At that very moment, while Noah and I were sitting on the couch reading poetry together, Zoe and DJ were rolling- no, WALLERING (when using the term "wallow" one must use it in proper southern vernacular)- around in the floor head-butting, hair-pulling, wrestling and squealing with delight.

If my life were a movie, this would have been the moment where we flash to a scene in which Noah and I are dressed in our Sunday best while drinking tea and reading poetry in proper British accents with a harpsichord playing in the background and then flash to a scene where DJ and Zoe are dressed in loin cloths rolling around in mud and wrestling for a turkey leg while heavy metal music blares around them.

I'm just sayin'.......

These are the things that go on in my head.