I had an observation today--nothing earth-shattering. But I have noticed recently that when people ask me or my wife how our "son" is doing, they are invariably referring to Anthony. But when I mention "my son" to others, it could be either Anthony or our younger son, and it is frankly often the latter.

I think I have mentioned this before: I don't actively think much about Anthony. Yes, there are *always* issues with him, but they usually fall within known parameters. For instance, today he urinated on the bathroom floor. It's no big deal in our lives because we know that's a possibility. We clean things up and move on.

But the topics that are generally on my mind regarding our children are our daughter's academics--because she is struggling a bit to find the necessary balance in her life right now, and it's a concern going forward given the things she hopes to accomplish--and our younger son's soccer. My wife would likely be more concerned with his violin. The difference in our viewpoints is that my wife focuses on how to help him with his violin, and I focus on how to help him with his soccer. Because he wants to go as far as he possibly can as a player, I work with him every day, even bundling up to go outside in our currently cold winter temperatures. My wife spends even more time with him daily on the violin than I do with soccer.

So, as I said, this is not a major observation. But it is interesting to me how our family situation seems to be viewed from outside, and how we may look at it differently from within.