Son of a Writer Mom

Because I spend so much time creating characters, it’s interesting to look at the “characters” in my family and note the personality traits that get passed on. My mom and I are loads alike—-people who see us generally assume we’re sisters (my mother has always looked annoyingly young *g*), we read a lot of the same authors, we have the same favorite stores and go to the same church. But I got my dad’s sense of humor. We have a shared love of standup-comedy and usually laugh at the same Monty Python or Mel Brooks lines that just make my mom shake her head.

My own kids are 4 and newly turned 6, and it’s just been amazing to watch their (very different) personalities emerge and take shape. I sold my first book, a romantic comedy, about two weeks after my son was born. At the time, almost all of my stories were intended for Harlequin’s humor line (no longer in publication, so it’s a good thing they don’t me cracking the occasional joke at American.) I’ll never forget the day that I saw clear evidence of my son’s burgeoning sense of humor. He was my colicky baby with a zillion allergies (many of which, thank goodness, he’s outgrown) and he wasn’t the outwardly happy baby that his little sister would turn out to be (she had an almost startling deep belly laugh by the time she was two months old, and it’s a sound I never get tired of.) But on this particular afternoon, in our kitchen, when my son was four months old and I was spoon-feeding him oatmeal cereal, he thought up his own joke. As soon as I fed him, he’d clamp the spoon between his lips and wouldn’t let me have it back, and his eyes would just light up as he giggled. After the first two times, when I went to give him the spoon he cracked himself up. He was anticipating the joke and couldn’t stop laughing. At that moment, I foresaw that the (somewhat warped) sense of humor had been passed on and one-liners, pranks and parent-teacher conferences were in my future. (By the time my son was five, he could recite three Bill Cosby routines and he often makes me laugh so hard it’s difficult to stay mad.)

My daughter, being the girl, has a lot of my similar interests and we are both counting the days to our first ever Disney vacation and dinner with Cinderella! But she’s actually more like her dad in his easy-going temperament. My son can be very…um, sensitive. His Lego tower once fell down and he stood with a flourish, announcing that it was the worst day of his life, his efforts had failed. My husband raised one eyebrow and asked, “So, where do you think he got his dramatic streak?” It’s true. Occasionally, some writers can be a bit…well, neurotic. I’m trying to temper that in our son, but I have to admit that I’m proud of his creative gifts. He’s already writing stories with beginnings, middles, ends and complex plots. And the very coolest part? When they put together little books in his kindergarten class, he had the TA help him write “dedicated” and then he wrote TO MY MOM.

So what about you? What traits or gifts do you think you’ve inherited from your family or passed on to your own kids?