<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/2325589562_1238c5d79f.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-429" title="2325589562_1238c5d79f" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/2325589562_1238c5d79f.jpg" alt="" width="485" height="519" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 360px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/smercury98/">SMercury98</a></h5>
One of the most fascinating and often disheartening things about being a parent is the opportunity to come face-to-face with the aspects of yourself you most love and hate.

<strong>Whether it's nature or nurture, it's inevitable. You're bound to see the best and worst of yourself in your children.</strong> The effect tends to be a surge of love and connectedness with them, and/or a pang of self-annoyance or even disgust.
<h4>A good dose of admiration, balanced by that cringe factor</h4>
My 11-year-old, for instance, quickly assesses a situation and relies on logic and reason to confidently arrive at the "best" way to tackle it. Oh, I know that trait all too well. It is a double-edged sword. <strong>I have to admit, I admire her and feel more connected because she thinks like me in this way</strong>—and it will serve her well in life, for the most part.

<strong>But I cringe as I watch her stubbornly stick to her guns about The Way to go about something.</strong> I want her to see and understand the many different and valid ways of thinking and problem-solving, and to have respect for other methods—a challenge perhaps she can take on now rather than struggle with daily as an adult.

When it comes to my 9-year-old, she thinks and lives in stories. She <em>adores</em> stories—reading them on the page, making them up in her head, acting them out, writing them down. I love and admire this about her, and we have a deep connection through this common love.

<strong>Unfortunately, though, she takes after me in other respects, too. She wants things to come easily.</strong> In fact, she wants to instantly be the best at everything she tries. She avoids competition, and becomes bogged down in self-consciousness when people are watching her try something she isn't already adept at. <strong>She's prone to quit, just like I was as a kid. It pains me to no end.</strong>

Yesterday I watched her try playing Guitar Hero for the first time. She is nine, and she's never tried this before. Before she was even halfway through the song she set the guitar down and walked away. I SO get exactly what she was feeling—that mix of feeling stupid for not being good at something, which then is engulfed by the more stupid feeling that comes from quitting. And I SO don't want her to be like that. It's probably the single thing I dislike most about myself.
<h4>Hoping some of what they have rubs off on me</h4>
But then there are those traits in your kids that take you by surprise. You see something in them, and you know it must come from somewhere, but it where? How? When, exactly?

On Saturday we took the girls to a potluck at the Safe Haven tent community that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago (<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=407">Thinking outside of the shelter</a>). They took it all in. As we drove home, Q said over and over how glad she was that we went. Then she started brainstorming all the ideas she had for helping the tent community, from baking muffins for them to organizing a full-on fundraiser. I was in awe of her compassion, and her energy to funnel that compassion into action.

Then last night, S pulled out the envelop of money she's been saving to donate to <a href="http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.2667525/">Heifer International</a>. My parents are very enthusiastic about the organization, and it gets mentioned at our church from time to time, but starting a fund was completely S's initiative. A few months ago she read an article in some magazine, and got it in her head that she wanted to save $20—enough to buy a flock of chicks for a family in need.

After Q gave S some money for helping babysit a neighbor boy, S realized she had met her goal. She and Jason went to the Heifer website to read everything they could about how a flock of chicks can help a family. Then they made her donation. She was thrilled.

<strong>As her mother, I was thrilled, too, but also stunned. Who are these children, so full of compassion and a spirit of giving that they put me to shame? I wasn't like that as a child, and I have so far to grow as an adult!</strong>

Suddenly I realize that while my girls have absorbed so many traits from me, there is much I should be hoping to learn from them, too. Perhaps there's something in their blood that's in mine, as well, and just hasn't been fully tapped.