Little Things

It's amazing how many of the little things can be explained simply by finding one person I'm biologically related to.

There are a lot of little weird personality quirks that are probably hard to tease out. My adoptive mother and my biological mother seem to have some traits in common. Where did I get what? This is not always an easy question to answer.

But then there are those things, little things, that you know had to come from biology.

I do not have a full set of adult teeth. I never had any wisdom teeth in my head. But more than that, I'm missing at least three adult teeth. They never existed, so they never came in and pushed the primary teeth out. As a result, I still have three baby teeth in my mouth.

It turns out, my biological mother also has a baby tooth left in her smile. (She had more, but lost them due to age. I've already lost one, myself, that way.)

She mentioned this in an off-hand comment in an e-mail. But it was like another piece of the puzzle just falling neatly into place. It's something I might never have remembered to ask about. But there it was, another obvious connection.

Tomorrow, she arrives in town for a short visit. Our first face-to-face meeting. I'm really nervous. But I'm really looking forward to it, too. I'll probably find out more little things then.