Melody and Jack are about as different as night and day.
Jack is my intense, rigid, and studious child. He looks forward to the opportunity to do extra credit and his idea of play time is organizing matchbox cars by color.
Melody, a free spirit, is perfectly content waltzing around just singing to herself. "Blonde" actually can describe her in many ways. She is vastly unorganized. While she loves to collect "treasures" the moment she collects one she "loses" it. While recently visiting my parents, Melody was walking down the hall with Grammy in tow. Grammy walked into another room and when Melody turned around and noticed she was no longer behind her said, with the most forlorn expression you can imagine, "I lost my Grammy!"
Jack has been working on a project for school in which they had to research an animal. He choose an Eagle. He has been working on it for a few days. Today, in carpool, Melody started talking about the Eagle project. I was floored when I realized she knew just as much about Eagles as Jack did!
This is not the first time it happens. She frequently surprises me, in fact, with how bright she is.
That's disappointing to me. Not that she's bright but that I'm surprised by it.
Jack is such a bright child and has such a love of academics that he often overshadows his sister.
I know it's not good to compare my children. Nor do I want to short change one by labeling them "the smart one" and the something else.
Does anyone else struggle with this? How do you foster the individual personalities of each child, while still teaching them important values and how to make wise choices?
