Two Peas In A Pod?

Before I had children, I often wondered whether I would have sons or daughters, and if they would be similar in personality or looks.

Whilst pregnant with Ruby, I assumed she would have brown hair and brown eyes like myself, as based on my knowledge of DNA, brown is a dominate gene compared to my husbands blonde hair and blue eyes. My guess was correct and as Ruby's baby blue eyes changed to brown, I thought I would get a little mini me, but she's not, even though she has my colouring she is the spit of her daddy! When I gave birth to Lottie, I was shocked to find she had very little hair, and it was blonde! Her eye colour at 14 months of age is still a lovely bright blue!

I never in a million years expected my daughters to be different colourings, but somewhere in my family, someone has blonde hair and blue eyes like my husband (this is required to override a dominant gene); I spoke to my mum about this and the only person we can come up with is my Nana, so I must have passed some genes onto Lottie from her.

In terms of the girls shape and size, they were both born at a good weight, Ruby was 7lb 15.5oz and 2 weeks and Lottie was 3 weeks early weighing in at 8lb 1oz. I am so glad I didn't go over my due dates as they would have been huge!

My husband and I are the opposite of one another, I'm very skinny and currently deemed as being underweight whereas hubbie is classed as being over. Ruby started off being quite a chunky baby and I never really put her into pretty dresses as they just did not suit her; Lottie on the other hand is very dainty and wears dresses most days. Its hard to say if Lottie will continue to be a girly girl; Ruby on the other hand has turned from tomboy to girlie girl and loves nothing more than princesses and playing with dolls.

Ruby and Lottie share a lot of my traits; both are very very strong willed and know what they want and when, however Lottie appears to be a lot more sensitive and even now will cry at the hoover or hair dryer. Lottie currently has a cold and is very clingy and unsettled, whereas Ruby is the opposite, when she is ill, she just gets on with it and she has a very stubborn personality.

I feel the girls need different forms of parenting; Lottie needs the encouragement and softly softly approach, whereas for Ruby needs us to be firmer. In some ways, it's strange looking at my girls - they were both due at the same time of the year but are so different, it's going to be interesting to see how they are similar or not in the coming years, but for the moment they are not quite two peas in a pod, I would be really interested to know your thoughts, are your children similar? Do you parent all your children in the same way or is there a difference?