Forecasting vs.…Aftcasting?

I found these old pictures of some of Abe and Seb's math schoolwork when they were younger, and it's been making me think about temperaments and personalities. I don't have anything profound to say about it. Just—it's interesting to see personality emerge in your children, and it's so much more complicated than "this child is calm and this child is excitable" or "this child is neat and this child is messy." And it's also interesting to think about what I thought my children would be like, based on how they were at age 8 or 10 or 14—and how what they are like differs from that. I'm guessing it will keep changing as they get older, too.
These top two math pages are Abe's, in case you were wondering.
And the three above are Seb's. It's fascinating to me, the way their brains worked! They were both meticulous and detail-oriented…but in totally different ways. And one of them required considerably more effort on my part to get him to do the math at all. We won't reveal which!

Along those lines, I think it is so strange how you can look at certain baby pictures, once the child is grown, and see that child looking back at you—the little quirk of his mouth, his skeptical expression, his unguarded smile. But when they're babies you can't look forward in time to see which specific little expressions will be part of the older person! I always want to—I want to see which parts of Clementine are just "baby" and which are going to carry through as part of HER. But I can't. It only works retroactively.

It might be something only a family member can see. But look at this:
I can tell it's Teddy, because I can kind of remember what he looked like back then, and he didn't have much hair, and his eyes are blue. But he doesn't look particularly Teddyish. Whereas this:
is so Gus-like! He was only a few months old, but that's HIM. Even though he has light hair now and a different-sized face.
Or consider these. Both rather serious. But something about the left one is a Daisy-face to me. The right one…could be someone else.
 But here, both faces look like the Daisy we know now. Even though one is sad and one happy.
Both Junie-ish
Only mildly Junie-ish
Or these of Goldie. Such a Goldie on the left, not such a Goldie on the right.

I don't know what it is! It's not their hair or their chubbiness or even their expressions, really, that make the difference. It's just…I can occasionally look back and see something that I know now peeking through, and I want to know what it is!

1 comment

  1. Interesting your comment about your children often differing from what you thought they would be like when they were younger. That filled me with nervousness over some of my children and hope over others! Ha! But that is so fun looking at those baby faces and seeing their characteristic expressions … or not. It makes me want to go through all their old baby photos to see. But already I can picture some exactly that do have little expressions that are still so them, and others that don’t. Any I could see it in yours too. Especially Gus!

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