misunderstood monster

It's hard to be the middle child: too young for the things your older, admired siblings are always doing, and too old for the baby-ish games your younger siblings want to play.  It's a challenge to process all the emotions in a positive way; conflict and frustration are common.  Someone I know used to refer to her middle child, with much love, as her "misunderstood monster."  He's now in his twenties and quite the accomplished young gentleman, so there's hope!

Our middlest child, T,  has been struggling with lots of big feelings lately, and hasn't been able to express them.  Today we were supposed to meet the younger classes from his co-oop at a local bird-banding station, one we've been to before.  I didn't get the message that the date of the trip had been switched, so we basically had the station to ourselves (excepting the scientists).  It was thrilling for my emotionally lost little boy, who got to hold and release several different birds; it required all of his attention and self-control, the two habits that come hardest to him.  He saw in person birds his aspiring-ornithologist brother has only read about, which was a feather in his cap.  And he was able to identify a more unusual bird correctly, having just read about it in the Burgess Bird Book.  He walked in the door of our house standing taller, and I think that his self-image has improved!  Hopefully our morning in the cold, wet woods was the new beginning we needed. (birds pictured are a Veery, Black-throated Blue Warbler, and Indigo Bunting)

This past term the artist we studied was Winslow Homer.  We were able to visit several of his paintings in person last week, including the one above.  Little M drew the most adorable sketch as her picture study, so I taped a shrunken copy in my planner/commonplace book/journal.  I've been doing that lately with the little kids' best drawings, without saving the originals (too much paper in our house!).  I love the tidy way this will store them for posterity.