Missy

People often say how you "never have two the same" when referring to your children. It's absolutely true - at least where ours are concerned.

I remember speaking with a health professional when M was pregnant with A and learnt that in most cases, boys take after their mum and girls take after their dad. (This is certainly the case where my mum is concerned, although amusingly, she refuses to see it). As we already had J who did take after M plus the fact we were absolutely positive we were going to have another boy, I thought, "fine", neither of our children will have my fiery temperament which is fine by me.

What happens? We have a girl!

(I will never forget the surgeon holding up a screaming A, facing her towards us so we could see down below that we definitely had a girl on our hands and M and I just stared, mouths open, disbelieving). "Oh-oh", I thought, "time to see if this hypothesis is correct".

It is.

Whereas J is calm, good natured, patient and amenable (exactly like M), A is fiery, impatient and loud (exactly like me). She is extremely kind and loves to share - I certainly don't want to paint a negative picture of her - it's just that she has this ability to go from happily playing to a pounding scream that can shatter concrete.

I have (perhaps unkindly) nicknamed her Foghorn Leghorn after the large Loony Toons character. Although I don't remember this large rooster as being particularly loud, the very fact he has the word 'foghorn' in his name was enough for me to adopt it for A.

It doesn't win me any brownie points with M however.

Foghorn facts:

A navigation aid for mariners, the first foghorn was installed on Partidge Island in 1859, replacing the less effective bell end cannon

Foghorns can be heard for up to 5 miles (hence the comparison)

Our real pet name for A is Missy.

She sure is a sweetie.