Of my three children, there is no doubt that my son resembles me the most. His blue eyes crinkle at the corners like mine when he laughs, and his stubborn stance is tempered by a sentimental streak a mile wide. I'm not surprised to see myself in my daughters, even though those glimpses are fleeting. Watching my son is like seeing myself reflected in a wind-tossed pond. There are ripples of difference on the surface, but underneath, we are the same.

As the middle child between two alpha-female sisters, he keeps a running monologue going. It doesn't matter if we hear every word, only that we acknowledge that he is speaking. From the moment his eyes open, to the moment he drops in exhaustion, he is expressing himself verbally. He lights up as he chatters about dinosaurs, his most frequent topic. Lately, however, he has been delving into sentiment:

"Mommy, I'm going to miss it when my little sister isn't a baby anymore. I'm going to miss her chubby little hands and her sweet little giggle." He offered this little tidbit as we were driving home from an activity. I looked into the rear view mirror to see his eyes welled up with tears as he reached across the gap between the passenger seats to hold his little sister's hand as she slept.

Oh, brother. I feel the same way about watching my youngest grow up, but you don't see me all weepy about it. Sniff, sniff. When he heard that my dear friend Nicole is pregnant with her first child, he was overjoyed, and mentions "our new baby cousin" all the time. "Our baby cousin is going to be so sweet and soft! Our baby is going to have the cutest little cheeks!" Kid better not get any ideas about having any more siblings. I'm just sayin'. This mama is done. Finito. The end.

He gets weepy every time we drive past his old preschool. He reminisces about his happy days there and wonders if his "young friends" remember him fondly. "They liked me there. They really liked me," he offered as he sniffed and rubbed his eyes with his fists.

His other ongoing fascination is with heaven. And more specifically, dinosaur heaven. Is it the same as people heaven? Do I think that when he dies he'll be reunited with his dinosaur friends? Do I think that when he was a little baby angel he had an apatosaurus for a playmate? Do I? Huh? Huh? Do I think so? Mommy?

I never expected that my son would be so emotional. It certainly isn't the notion of little boy that I once imagined. Then again, nothing about parenting has been the way I pictured. I knew there would be love, and drool, and diapers and weeping and learning, but I never knew that my 'realistic' ideas about motherhood would be watered down versions of my reality. First of all, I never imagined that 'learning' would be so exhausting for everyone. And that I had so much to learn. The weeping...joy, pain, and every parade. The diapers. The drool. And the love. It's like every expectation I had grew a thousand-fold.

My son and I, we're a couple of stubborn, sentimental saps.