Nature-Nurture?

I had lunch the other day with some very nice women who I'm on a working group with, and anyway at lunch we got to talking about motherhood. (They were very excited to hear our great news!) Anyway, one friend told about how her son would have a predictable screaming fit every night at around 5:30 and that she and her husband would take turns holding him while the other made dinner. She then went on to explain that the little guy would get stiff as a board and the parent doing the comforting would basically hold on to both ankles with the little guy ramrod stiff across the shoulder screaming his head off. They even have pictures to prove it! She assured us that they’d checked for every possible illness and/or abnormality, but the kid was perfectly fine. That was just how he cried. And he only cried for about 15 minutes, stiff as a board the whole time, and then he’d stop. Kids!

This all of course makes me wonder what our son or daughter will be like. Of course I'll let you know my verdict on the nature-nurture thing once I see how our kid likes his or her toast buttered. (Apparently it's important to butter every single bit of the toast particularly the edges. Well it's important to one of our baby's moms ;-)

I do know that Susanne is going to be a fabulous mom. You should see her with people. Whether it’s a mentally ill client who needs calming down, or a neighbor who needs help, or a co-worker who needs information, or a little kid, Susanne is just very gifted at listening and responding to people. She can communicate more in 5 words than I can in 50. That’s pretty good I say. (See, she would have just said “that’s good”.) See what I mean! Gosh, I can’t wait until next June! -Monica