How Big Will He Be?

We give everything we have to our children. I think everyone would agree to that. We give them all our love, all our time, all our attention, and all of our money.

We also give them much more than what we do consciously. Parents can pass on any number of things through their genes whether they want to or not. We may give them patience or a temper. We may give them a cheerful attitude or grumpiness. We can give them a lot of things.

The argument of hereditary versus learned behavior is a very interesting one indeed. I have always found myself wondering about how much of a child's personality is passed on and how much of it is learned. Of course kids learn a lot of their personality from their parents who also pass them their genes so that line is muddled a bit.

You can discuss that topic amongst yourselves or leave your scientific research in the comments section.

We are moving on to the topic of physical traits that we pass on to our children. There is no argument about how this works. We know that these traits are passed on from one generation to the next. There are odds at play here though. There is no guarantee that children will look like either of their parents. They might look like an uncle, a cousin, or no one in particular. How the genes mix according to that xx, xy, yy chart thing that they taught us in biology is a mystery.

As people continue to tell me that Braden looks like me I am beginning to wonder what his physique will be like. Will I pass on my chicken wing shoulder blades? Will he get the bird chest? I would rather he get the good parts of my physique. When I figure out what those parts are I will let you know.

I have always been thin. It is hard for me to put on any weight. Later in life this has served me well. It is much easier to stay skinny. So far the only thing that really packs on the pounds for me is beer. In my young adult life I drank way too much. At that time I had a nice beer belly. I didn't have any accompanying weight to go with it though. I liked to call myself a skinny fat guy. It seemed to fit.

When I was growing up I would have liked to be a bit bigger. I was a sports nut, and size always helps. In baseball I was destined to be a singles hitter. Despite my obvious lack of muscles I did record exactly one home run in my high school career. I still remember it vividly in that glory days section of my brain.  I was never cut out much for football because of my size either. I got playing time in 7th and 8th grade, but eventually quit to pursue basketball and baseball.

I would like for Braden to be built a little bigger than me. I will be happy no matter what size he is, but there are advantages to being bigger. This is not just a pipe dream either. The men in Arica's family are very big and strong. Her cousin could double as the brawny paper towel guy. He looks like a lumberjack. Let's just say that her uncles have never had any fear of a little tussle either.

So what will it be? I have no idea, but as you can see from these pictures Braden is happy to show off his physique already. Maybe that is a good sign.