Why is it

that kids who grow up in the same family with the same parents end up so different? It's got to be something in our genes. Or maybe it's just the friends/times for us are different enough, even if we're only a year or two apart? We remember different things, and common memories in different ways...It's as if we had different childhoods sometimes!

I just wonder at my brother, sister and myself. We are very different. My sister is very much a Generation X California Yuppie. (Love you, sis, and that's not an insult.) My brother is a down-home, laid-back, family man type - dare I say a bit of a redneck? (Love you too bro, and that's not meant as an insult either!) As for me? I'm not quite sure. I used to say I'm a redneck yuppie wannabe. Mooner, my little's stepdad, calls me an "educated redneck." [g]

How did I get off track like that? I was originally meaning to talk about the differences in our reading habits!

I love to read. Live for it sometimes. I prefer romances and some sci-fi fantasy. Mixed with biographies of famous and not-so-famous people (mostly women, I'm fascinated by women in history), history, political history, religion in history, regligious studies, economics...

My sister has always loved to read. She reads less now, but that's a side-effect of having a child, I think. Especially one as precocious as my niece. She mostly reads fiction. But growing up, oh, the books we read! We actually had a system at night, of different knocks on the wall between our rooms. Meet in the hall, going to bed, finished my book...Our secret code...

And our brother, who was never very into reading. Oh, he had his moments. But this photograph we have of the three of us as little kids says it all. The three of us are sitting on our front porch swing in Oklahoma. M's about 6, I'm about 4, B's about 3? Something like that. M & I are sitting there so prettily in our dresses and ponytails. B is lunging off the porch swing toward the camera. [g] Always in motion my brother. ;) Too restless to sit still I think.

But there was that summer we spent in Spain with our maternal relatives where he read. Out of desperation, boredom, not sure which. And there was the time he tried to smuggle a book into church and dropped it in the parking lot.

Ruined a good thing for M & I. LOL. Mom used to let us sit up in the balcony at church as long as we behaved. So I'd sneak my book in in my purse - ah, the days of big purses! - and stick it in the bible. Did all the stand-up, sit-down, kneeling stuff while reading. Everyone thought I was reading the bible during Mass. Ah, such a devoted girl! We had to sit downstairs with Mom & Dad after that. :( I'm not sure which was worse. Getting busted for reading during Mass, or having the priest ask what my sister and I were signing to each other during the service. Man, he had eyes like a hawk! Mom hadn't even seen that!

Anyway. My brothers kids like to read, but aren't as fanatical from the little I know (I don't see them often enough!) as my sister and I were/are. My sister's little girl likes to read. But she's so young now, it's hard to tell if it'll stick.

My little sister loves to read. The older she gets, the more she wants to read. It's fascinating to watch. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing myself at that age discovering books; the possibilities are boundless, worlds to discover and explore...