Nature vs. Nurture

It never ceases to amaze me how we are all born as true individuals. I know this isn't some incredible new discovery, but to me the very truth that two people brought up in almost identical conditions can have such vastly different personalities attests to the eternal nature of the soul. Scientific reasoning would lead one to say that two of any entity placed in equal circumstances would yield equal results. My boys prove this wrong every day. I guess it's the whole nature versus nurture argument. I am a big fan of nurturing, but we definitely all come with our own natures.
Case in point: my boys.
Last weekend we were all in our bedroom listening to our church's bi-annual worldwide conference on the computer. At one point I moved from sitting at the desk to laying, stomach down, on the bed. Brandt pretty much didn't seem to notice and continued playing with toys on the floor. Eli asked if I wanted a massage--which I took him up on. And Asher became very excited and tried to sit, stand, and jump on me over and over again. You may say this is just their age. But Brandt has ALWAYS been one to do his own thing, regardless of what others are doing or may think. Eli has always been empathetic. When he was in nursery at church (18mo.-3yr olds), his teachers said he always tried to comfort the sad kids who had toys taken away by other children by finding them a new toy to play with. Asher, so far, has a very fun, but quite emotional, personality. We always know exactly how he's feeling, even though he can't tell us in words yet. He also has a very weird phobia: flowers and some plants. He cringes in fear, and sometimes all-out panic if he is get too close to certain flowers or plants--particularly ones with a lot of texture (i.e.: elephant ear leaves=good; sunflowers=bad). He has been doing this for months now--something we guess he was just born with. My mom has found it's easy to childproof her house when she babysits him--she just puts a plant in front of any places she doesn't want him to go!
Some aspects of our boys are the product of nurture, though. Both Eli and Brandt LOVE working with Eric outside and in the garage. Eli is more at-task, which is partially his age, and probably partially just him. We recently had a family project of using the left-over wood from the treehouse that was smashed to build a second "kids deck" in the backyard. Eli helped Eric pour the concrete footings and we all helped some with the construction. Thanks to a hardworking, skilled father, our boys are learning to use all sorts of tools at an early age. They are also learning the importance of the old addage: "Use it up, wear it out. Make it do, or do without."

Workout log: Thursday I did a 1.5 mile warm up, 9 400's at 10mph with 1:30 rests inbetween and a 1 mile cooldown on the treadmill.
Friday I biked 45 min. and did weights.
Saturday I ran 8.4 miles in 1:11. I put in a couple of giant hills at the end for Callie (who had asked me to check the elevation gain for her with my watch--while trudging I realized I could have just driven up the hills with my wrist out the window :)) Afterward I ran with Brandt at practice. We ran 12 150's and jogged a 150 between each one.