A friend from the UK stopped by the other day on his way to one of the other islands to study some of the rare birds he specializes in, and since it's been more than a year since he's been around he noticed some big changes in my kids.

He has two of his own in England ... a girl Sam's age -- the first Ella to prompt the play on names that suggests his child and mine shouldn't date, a joke I've since worn thin (Sorry Lisa of Guatemalan blog fame, and Vietnam's Rebecca) -- and a boy just a couple of weeks younger than Cj.

He well remembers his eldest child as a toddler, and the assumptions he made at the time involving sweeping generalities about how two-year-olds choose to behave, what sort of noise level they create within the bubble that is their world, the types of activities they find enjoyable, and so on.

He was reminded of his erroneous suppositions as he watched Cj quietly feed her baby doll, sit for fifteen minutes paging through a book and amuse herself by parading through the house in an ever-changing fashion show of shoes ... shoe of shows? Whatever.

"I'd forgotten how quiet girls can be at this age," he eventually and wistfully shared.

Apparently, his two-plus-year-old Vroooooooms and Screeeeches through every waking hour, some sort of vehicle in hand ... his preference is for heavy equipment of the dirt-moving variety ... and is rarely still for any more time than it takes him to tear the wheels ... or the ears ... off something.

Yes, it starts early that Mars/Venus thing.

Although Sam has never been impressed by anything with wheels, far preferring toys with legs, while Cj is going for the bunnies, pandas and pink whales of the soft, stuffed and fuzzy variety for a cuddle, Sam's idea of fun leans more toward setting up a scenario that involves a big T-Rex stomping the stuffing out of some smaller animal ... after no little posturing and pounding, I might add.

Although today's Love Thursday photos don't show Sam in full Destructoboy mode ... just his so-typical goofball stuff ... both shots do capture the boy/girl separation quite well.