Predictions

Matt and I were talking the other night about Kate’s blossoming personality and traits, and imagining what she’ll be like as an older child. Seeing how she bravely toddles past the older boys in her day care class, we joke about how she’ll show up all the boys in the school yard and punch them in the nose if they ever put her down.

It is fun to see how preferences and tendencies that emerge now, even in infancy, will play out in the years to come. Will they be enhanced over time, as we encourage her verbally and give her opportunities to develop her natural talents? (don’t worry—we won’t encourage or give her lessons in the nose-punching!) Or, will time and experience, nature and nurture, transform these traits we now see? Will self-awareness and peer pressure change this sapling personality into a different kind of tree?

Based solely on the Kate we know now, we might predict that:

…she will be a great musician or dancer, as she loves to move along to music and even make her own. (She especially enjoys the cat’s jingle-ball toys right now, shaking them like an egg-shaker a percussionist or back-up singer would use!)

…she will be athletic, or at least physically coordinated. Her legs have been very strong from the start, and she has pulled up and walked pretty early. (Her mommy and daddy also walked at nine months, and while we’ve never been MVPs, we do enjoy sports and physical activity.)

…she will be very determined, trying things over and over again to accomplish what she wants to do and getting frustrated with herself when she can’t do something on the first or second try.

…she will be competitive (Matt’s word) or “a quick study” (my words). She learned to pull up from watching the older boys in her class, and just last week, we think she learned how to hold her own bottle and tip it back from watching her older cousins with their sippys and cups at Thanksgiving. Either way, she seems to think “anything they can do, I can do too!”

…she will be sociable. I’ve often heard that pastor’s kids are comfortable with lots of different people because they get passed around and greeted by so many people each week. I think day care is also good for developing social skills. Those little babies really do act like friends, interacting with one another and showing preferences for certain playmates! I am especially curious to see if this makes Kate more sociable later on, since I was an only child and never in day care, and have always found it hard to make close friends.

Years down the road, she and I will look back on this list, at notes in scrapbooks and comments saved in baby books. Maybe she’ll squeal “wow! That is right on!” or maybe she’ll scoff and say “Mom! How could you have thought that?” Whether these predictions are right or wrong, we’ll laugh together, I’ll give her a hug, and love her for who she is.