We all have them

quirk 

–noun

a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism



We all have them, those little habits and behaviors that others often find obnoxious, annoying, or just plain strange. Quirks. I've always liked that word and when I describe someone as "quirky", I usually don't mean it in a bad way.

Sometimes we find the quirks of the ones we love cute or endearing and other times we want to ring their necks if they do that thing they do one more single time today. 

Take me, for instance.  I have a bad habit of leaving my dresser drawers open because I sometimes get a little nuts when I'm trying to decide what I'm going to wear.  Clothes start flying off the hook left and right, socks whirl out of the drawers and you may get hit with a flying shoe or boot if you're crazy enough to enter the room when I'm in one of my "I don't have a thing to fit me right!" moods.   

I happen to know that drawers and cabinets being left open drive Charlie a little nuts and I'm kinda with him on the cabinets thing but nary a day goes by that I don't leave a drawer or two at least partially open.  But never once has he criticized my doing it.  Why?  Because he has to live with me and he knows how to choose his battles wisely.

This is very important to remember when dealing with quirks.  The quirks you find cute, you can point out with a wink and a smile, but the ones that annoy the crap out of you? Go easy.  

I know this can sometimes be very difficult especially if the quirk,  heaven forbid, belongs to one of your children.  Those are the ones I find the hardest to swallow.

Devin has this incredibly irritating habit of constantly making some type of insanely annoying sound whether it be spewing out some kind of gibberish from his mouth or tappity tap tapping his foot on the floor or pencil on the table.  Drives me COMPLETELY INSANE!

And Dracen?  His latest quirk goes something like this:

"Mom, I'm hungry." (even if he just ate 15 minutes ago)

Well, what do you want, Dracen?

" Well, what do you have? "

Dracen, you just went to the store with me.  You know what we have as well as I do. 

"But I can't remember...what do we have?" 

And we go through this at least 5 times a day.  Seriously.

This though, is what I call a passing quirk because I know that he'll outgrow this one eventually.  The fact that he and his brother both also posses the bad habit of leaving their drawers open and clothes on the floor is another kind entirely and the kind that, oddly, drives me the craziest. 

Have you ever noticed that? 

The older my kids get, the more I'm beginning to see that the things they do that bother me the most are many times the ones they seem to have either inherited or learned from me, myself and I. 

Devin is a channel flipper.  Every morning when I'm driving him to school, he's flip, flip, flipping the radio station and I can't even tell you how crazy this makes me...Yet, I myself am queen of the channel flippers.  I will sometimes flip through those channels 5 times before I land on a song I find acceptable for my listening pleasure and then again when that song ends...and then again.  

We all have our quirks. Some of them we outgrow, some develop over time and others are just part of who we have always been...the ones that when added all up together, makes us who we are and who we were meant to be.

I think this quote says it best...

"Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks". ~Goethe

How true is that?!

Now if y'all will excuse me, I must take my quirky self in here and hang up some clothes....

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss