Merely smaller and bigger versions

of each other.

Whether it's the way in which they verbally negotiate, read under their blankets with flashlights or fiddle with coins in their pockets, my two boys are one and the same in subtle, yet unmistakable ways. It's almost like seeing my own husband as a boy in stages and I often become nostalgic about somebody I never knew, yet somehow have always known in my own children. I think about my husband as a small boy and wonder about the kinds of things he liked to do or say. I don’t doubt he drove his mother to her limits with his incessant talking much in the same way my boys do to me (I'm starting to suspect that they enjoy my twitchy eye). And whatever his own parents did in raising him to be such a good father, I only hope I’m doing some of the same. They’re all so similar, these three boys I live with, almost as if they’re the same person. Each following a similar thread, but each at his own point in time, giving me glimpses of things past and things future.

And if I keep going with this train of thought, you’ll have nothing left to read but "A Christmas Carol" metaphors and symbolism. I’ve got sugar cookies on a cooling rack that need taste-testing anyway, so I really should be going.