Genetics

There they are, looking so lovely; Maren, the one wearing lip gloss and a shirt from her Hollister collection and Ella dolled in polka dots and floating blonde waves. Now, take a minute to look at their eyes and noses and smiles and skin. This is a perfect example of cousins with an undeniable stronghold on my father's gene pool. In addition to appearance similarities, Maren is my second daughter and Ella is my sisters second daughter. Their birthdays fall one day apart in consecutive months and even though they didn't live near each other until a couple of years ago, even their mannerisms are the same. All of this is so interesting to me, but mostly my curiosity stems from how this is at all possible because my sister and I were so incredibly different as kids. I mean, the standing question was, "How well did your mom know the milkman?" We were polar opposites I tell you. The only thing we did agree on was how difficult it was finding a single redeeming quality in each other. Then, one day, we grew up and procreated and somehow, in the world of DNA, these little human beings, better known as our offspring are presently toting all that she and I fought so hard to individualize for many years. And the truth, well, watching this little cloneship is as delightful as eating chocolate everyday...which both of them make every effort to do, by the way.

*I'd like to note, that eventually, into early adulthood, I realized that the world did, in fact, not revolve around me so I gave the relationship with my sister a second chance. Today she lives just a few blocks away and we spend as much time together as possible. It's funny, but now we can easily pass for sisters - our voices sound nearly identical (which fools our husbands on any given phone call) but best of all, she is my very closest friend.