The TwiLytle Zone

I noticed something curious about our family. It's one of those unexplainable little coincidences that makes me sit back and wonder.
Cora looks more like Ryan than me. She got his facial features and even unknowingly makes the same "resting face" as he does. She has also inherited some of his qualities that aren't as evident in me, such as intelligence and persistence. Cora started piano lessons this year and is doing great. She works carefully to perfect each song she plays. Ryan has been learning some fairly difficult piano pieces on his own, and he works laboriously on them until he gets the notes right. He's not satisfied with mediocrity, and neither is Cora. When I try to play a song that is even slightly above of my level of expertise I immediately skip to another song. It's too hard, so I don't try.
Jane is more like me in appearance and (I'll call it) school attitude. She's only in first grade, but she already has a hard time focusing, or wanting to focus, on her work. She feels pressured when other students finish their math before she does. I was always that way. When other students would begin turning in their tests, I was no longer able to concentrate. I have the feeling she's going to have my lovely daydreaming, distracted disposition that always seemed to put a damper on my success as a student. I told Jane if she could learn all 200 of her sight words I would buy her a toy. I thought she would be all over that idea, but she said, "It's too hard!" Wuh-oh. That sounds like me. And I swear I've never said that out loud for her to hear. I want her to have more confidence than I ever did and ever will. Maybe I can "fix" her before she truly ends up like me. But I digress.
She also seems to have harbored a bit of my manipulative tendencies. I never really thought of myself as manipulative until recently, but as Jane has been honing her skill I realize that when I really want something I attempt any amount of subtle suggestion it takes to get the desired reward. If Jane gives me enough reasons to feel empathy over her apparent toy deficit, then I'll have to succumb and buy her a new doll, right?? Uh-huh... Reminds me of the times I come hemming and hawing to Ryan about what I "need" to go shopping for today. (Insert my chagrined face here.)
Okay, so none of this is too terribly ponderous. Genetics should not come as a big surprise. Cora is more like Dad, Jane is Mom's likeness. Big whoop. The part that makes me scratch my noggin a little is that Ryan's and Cora's Social Security Numbers begin with the exact same three digits. My SSN and Jane's begin with the same three digits. Going further, the first three digits in Oliver's SSN match mine! And who does he predominantly look like? ME, OF COURSE!!! (It's too early to say whose personal traits Ollie possesses more of between Ryan and me. But I'll be waiting for clues...)
Maybe this isn't as remarkable a coincidence as I've made it up to be. It's just intriguing to me that the kid who looks and acts like Ryan also shares the first three digits of the number he was issued when he was a baby, and Jane and Oliver have the same first digits in their numbers as my decades-old, government issued number. How are the numbers determined? Why didn't we all have the same first three digits? Especially since Ryan and I were born in the same hospital, just 4 months and 2 days apart.

Hmmmm . . . . .

What does it mean? Does a secret government worker slink around the homes of newborns everywhere to methodically determine which Social Security Number to issue, depending on which biological parent the wee one most accurately resembles?

I can't get the italics to stop.

I keep clicking on the icon and it won't discontinue the italics. Oh, there we go.

AHHHHHGHHH!!! THEY'RE BACK!

All this emotional and technological turmoil is making me hungry. Now if I can only decide what to make for dinner.