Genetics

The age old debate...nature vs. nuture. We are all so unique. How much can we attribute to our environment and how much to our genetics. Having a child of my own and seeing behaviors appear as if from birth makes me recognize the power of genetics. Recent events have led to my hypothesis that two genes are present and dominant in Quade:

The Clean Gene
Those of you who know Bruce well may be aware of a few of his wonderful habits such as: cleaning the dishes and kitchen, taking out the trash almost daily, putting his clothes away perfectly, and maintaining excellent personal hygiene. Well, his dedication to cleaniness transcended to his parenting of quade. He is extremely thorough when changing a diaper, giving a bath and washing quade after meals.

Quade has been demonstrating similar cleanliness behaviors. Obviously he has been exposed to bruce's habits for 21 months, so one could argue that it is environment and not genetics involved. However, I am not as clean as bruce and quade spends a majority of time with me.

Exhibit A of the clean gene: Quade's favorite activity is to stand in the shower, use my loofah sponge to clean the glass door and then use the squeegee to remove the water and bubbles.
Exhibit B: After meals he asks for us to "wash hands" and also asks for a napkin to wipe his face and the table.
Exhibit C: If a piece of ice falls on the floor from the ice maker he immediately walks over and throws it in the sink (wouldn't want to ruin the hardwoods).
Exhibit D: Cleans up the trash around the house and puts it in the trash can.

The Ice Cream Gene
I am proud to claim this gene as my own. I would eat ice cream after every meal and four times on Sunday...mmm mmm good. In the past few months I've been giving quade little bites of ice cream after he eats a good dinner or something.

Now most children love ice cream, so this gene may not come as a surprise to you. However, I recognized how dominate and strong the gene presents itself in quade when we were at the sprayground last week...

Exhibit A: I was sitting in a fold-up chair watching quade play in the water when he realized that the ice cream cart had arrived at the park. He walks right up to me and says, "ice cream?". I explain that i did not bring my money to the park, its in the car, and the man won't give me ice cream if i don't give him money. Quade listened soaking in my economic lesson, said "okay" and walked away...not towards the water park, but towards the ice cream cart. I watched him walk right up to the man. I could not hear the dialogue but i'm sure it went like this:

Quade: Ice cream?
Man: where's your mom? (i'm sure with a tone of 'she must be very irresponsible to let you talk to a stranger')

Quade: Ice cream?
Man: go get your mom? ('where is that crazy lady?')

Quade then walked back over to me and said "ice cream?". I explained the money situation one more time. Fortunately the ice cream man went on his way and the pleas ended.

At least with this genetic combination quade will be the cleaniest ice cream eater in town!