It's in the Genes

See that sweet face up there? That's a face that makes strangers stop to tell him how handsome he is- not cute, but handsome. Kind of an unusual compliment for a three-year-old.

And there's no question where that face comes from. That is 100% Cap'n's face. That mop of unruly, thick, dark brown hair- that's Cap'n's hair. The way the eyes close up into tiny slits when he gives a big smile- just like Cap'n's. Even the eyebrows are Cap'n's.

If A-Train is my mini-me, Big D is Cap'n's.

But if my memories from high school biology serve, he must have inherited something from me! Sadly, it wasn't his boyish charm, but rather one of the qualities I'd most like to change about myself.

He's a worrier, just like his mama. Mama is the type of person who, if she sends someone a text and hasn't heard back within 10 minutes, imagines the worst! Mama gets that from Grandma Jinx.

He carries the weight of the world on his almost-four-year-old shoulders.

We both have our birthdays coming up, so aging is on his little mind. Last week he told me that on my next birthday I would die. Because, according to him, I would be turning seven and when you turn seven, "you get died."

Yesterday, he worried that Mr Butler would get "runned over" as we stood in an empty parking lot.

And today, when asked what he wanted for his birthday he said he wanted "a pink bunny that is so, so cute." And then worried aloud, "but what if you can't find a pink bunny that is so, so cute?"

He worries about the dark and zombies and vampire bites. (I attribute all of those to having an older brother.) He worries about touching anything red- because it might "explode you." He worries that nearly every bug he sees is poisonous. He worries that his friends will get sick and won't be able to come to his birthday party. He worries that Dinah the cat will get stuck outside in a rain storm. And on and on.

I'm still trying to keep him away from the real worries of the world- turning off NPR whenever he gets in the car- so that I don't have to explain about war and famine and hate and disease. He's not ready to have to deal with those things at almost-four, and neither is his mama at almost-thirty-six.