Like Mother Like Daughter

It's hard when a trait you have, that you really don't always love in yourself, gets passed on to one of your children. It's like watching your childhood all over again, only from an adult's perspective. Some days, you can be more objective and forgive yourself for some of the behaviors by watching them in your baby, but other days it just annoys you and you find yourself snapping at, what is ostensibly a little yourself. I will dispense with the theory. I am referring to Elena (my almost four-year-old) and her constant talking.

Apparently, when I was a child I was called Constant Comment, after the Bigelow tea. Family lore has it that I once said "Who" over one thousand times before changing the subject(my dad counted). I spent my school years as the "social butterfly" (an actual quote from my third grade teacher). Even times spent alone were spent singing and talking to myself.

The positives? I had an excellent vocabulary, people who weren't already tired of hearing me talk thought I was charming (strangers mostly fall into this category), I was good as self-entertaining and could entertain my sisters telling stories. The negatives? I could be annoying, exhausting, and create noise pollution. It was hard to get mad at little Kristen for this behavior, though, because I was so much the optimist, it was kind of like kicking a puppy.

Cut to Elena. Yesterday, at six in the morning, she was at my bedside. I was tired and could not seem to get my eyes to open and my body to rouse. I lay there, half asleep, while she covered me with words. On and on and on she went. I was just amazed that, with no cues to encourage the coversation, she kept it up. It made me want to cry.

It occured to me that she has definitely inherited the gene for loquacity from me. I will start praying now for her ability to self-edit, modulate and read a room.