Mirror Me

Was thinkin' this morning on the way to work (by the way, did your parents ever demand "don't think!" when as a child you did something that frustrated them, and then you explained why you did it with "but I thought..."? I got that a lot. If I ever do that to Anonybabe, please shoot me immediately in the gut.) how I didn't expect having a child with such a similar personality to be so hard.

I worried a lot that a child of mine would be my complete opposite, and that I would have a hard time relating. Instead I have a child who seems to be very very much like me, and I have a hard time accepting her as such. I've had 33 years to build up impatience and resentment towards the parts of myself that drive me crazy, so when Anonybabe stares blankly at strangers, or demands that I do something for her instead of doing it herself so that it can be done easily and "right", or yearns savagely to immerse herself in television, I get embarrassed. I get disdainful. Which never helped me as a child and sure as hell isn't going to help her.

I know I'm being a little melodramatic, but it makes me gulp hard to think that if I want to be a good parent to Anonybabe, I'm going to have to work on accepting myself as-is.