It's obvious. But still remarkable.

I realized something yesterday that I continue to realize again and again.  It is this: my daughters are different.  Yesterday, I saw it in the way that they get sick.  Literally.

In the past couple of weeks, both of my daughters have been struck by stomach bugs.  Last Thursday, Marley woke up vomiting and sobbing, soaking her sheets, pillows, and a decent-sized corner of her rug.  It was terrible and disgusting, and she reached for me, soaked and pathetic, while whimpering, "hug," and I flinched and squirmed, hoping that some pats on her arm and back would be enough until we got her cleaned up.  Yesterday, Rudy was sad and frighteningly lethargic when we picked her up from preschool.  Less than thirty minutes later, while I was frantically arranging for Marley to walk to her bus stop with one of the other moms there, I watched from the kitchen while Rudy, tucked into my bed, leaned over the bucket I had given her, spasming.  She did not spill a drop or make a sound, but when I got to her after sending Marley off, Rudy looked up at me with her biggest eyes and saddest frown and then waited patiently while I cleaned her chin so that she could snuggle with Hat Lamb.

Typical Marley: needing attention and affection, clinging and wringing all the drama out of every situation.  Typical Rudy: independent and surprisingly able to move on from setbacks, turning quiet and inward when upset or scared or disappointed.  (When Rudy was even littler, she used to look down at her hands, like really examining them, when she was sad or hurt, instead of whining or screaming or stomping.  At three and a-half, there are more tantrums mixed in now, but I think her most consistent inclination when she's upset, is to shut down a little.  Which sounds familiar.  Hmmm.)

There's more.  While Marley was crying and screaming, particularly about having to miss school and the much-anticipated Fly Up Day the next day, she was also asking questions like, "Why is this happening?" and "Where did the germs come from?" and "How much longer will this last?"  And she spent most of the next day weak and asleep on the couch, but whenever she woke up and noticed that I was no longer with her, she shuffled to the screen door to find Rudy and me playing in the front yard and cried, "I don't want to be aloooooone.  Come be with meeeeee."  Todd and I have started calling Marley Koala because of her constant need to be, literally, on one of us at all times.  She is sensitive and affectionate, inquisitive and demanding, and she does not give up on what she wants easily.

Rudy, however, has always been better at calming herself, especially if she's got Lambie with her.  She spent most of yesterday sleeping in my bed, waking once to throw up again, and she never once cried.  She was just sad and thoughtful, and kept snuggling Lambie in a relieved and pitifully content way.  When Marley and I were in the front yard this morning, I went back in to check on Rudy twice.  The first time, she assured me that she was okay, that she only wanted to relax and watch cartoons.  The second time, she wasn't on the couch anymore because she was upstairs gathering a pile of her favorite books.  By lunchtime she was outside with Marley and me eating a handful of strawberries and a few blue corn tortilla chips.  She is self-sufficient and sweet and free-spirited; she is easily amused and more in-tune and accepting of what she needs to feel better.  She's the only kid in Truro who voluntarily lies down in the beach tent, and has for a couple of years, to rest and chill out.

My girls have got other qualities, too.  Marley is precise and Rudy is imaginative.  Marley is stubborn and Rudy is mischievous.  Marley is determined to be graceful and Rudy loves to make other people laugh.  And of course, sometimes they slip into each other's traits; no one is that easily defined.

But it also doesn't surprise me that in this picture, sent to me recently by one of their babysitters after a happy visit from the ice cream man, Rudy is the one happy to be silly and messy, and Marley is the one caught mid-pose.