Growing up as the second child, I always tried to be "older" than I really was. I would watch in amazement everything my brother did and always thought, "I can't wait to be his age so I can do all those things." What ended up happening was rather than enjoying the present, I always looked to the future.

It wasn't until I had a second child did I realize why I have this personality trait. Since Natalie was born, she seemed to have skipped all the newborn and infant stages that Tanner went through. I save baskets and baskets of all Tanner's old baby toys since I knew I would have a second child. Those baskets are still sitting there, many still untouched. It seems like Natalie was never interested in those toys. All she ever wants is to play with whatever her brother is playing.

Natalie also seemed to skip the crawling all together. Tanner didn't even start to show any interest in walking or standing up until he was well over 12 months old. Natalie has been upright since 8 months! Tanner never saw an ounce of television until he was close to 1 years old. Natalie has been watching cartoons since the day she was born and sadly she seems more interested in the ipad than in books.

I couldn't help but observe Natalie's behavior and realize that birth order really does have a powerful affect on people's personalities. The mere fact that she does not have my undivided attention 100% of the time has the greatest impact on her development. I can already tell that she's a bigger risk taker and much more independent than her brother, and that is solely because I have allowed her to be alone more than I did with her brother. For 2.5 years he had my sole undivided attention.

I always knew that birth order and personality were linked, but it wasn't until watching my own children develop did I realize how much of an affect birth order has. By realizing this now, I hope to guide my parenting practice to help promote the strengths of their birth order but also to help alleviate some of the weaknesses. Already it has helped me to stop and smell the roses and stop always trying to grow up too fast.

This is a trait that still affects me today. In college, I couldn't wait to graduate. Once I graduated, I couldn't wait to get married. And once I got married, I couldn't wait to have kids. And once I had kids, I couldn't wait for them to get older... It's taken me 31 years to finally stop and smell the roses