Just maybe I'm holding her back........

So, I have 3 kids........the older 2 are girls and the youngest is my only son. He is the challenging one, who pushes all the boundaries and breaks all the rules. The oldest is my little Angel....she's a little mommy to the younger two, wise beyond her years and has the common sense to go along with it. Now, my middle child is just that.....a middle child. She isn't the first at anything....she isn't the baby.....but if you watch her she will flip flop day to day as to which sibling she most resembles.

I have been told that I baby my Issabug (the middle child) too much, not allowing her to grow up or realize her potential. And about the time we started seeing some maturation on her part, her brother kind of took over the lime light with his disabilities. However, I have always felt that I was a fair parent, setting rules, but adjusting things for each child and their personality. I have started to realize though that I could probably expect a little more from my Issabug.

Case in point.....I recently begin to keep some afterschoolers to help supplement my husband's income. Two of the 3 are younger than Issabug and I am constantly amazed by the leader role that she has taken. She has babied them when they scraped a knee, helped them fix their drink or their snack in the afternoon, and even chastised them for being too loud while the others were working on their homework. One day she even called the oldest afterschooler down (the girl's the same age as Issabug by the way) for not taking her shoes off when entering the door, a rule that Issabug often forgets herself. I sit here listening to her call the younger girls down for giggling too loundly and distracting the others from doing their homework.

I realize that she is blossoming before my eyes into the confident strong young woman that I knew she could be. She is benefiting from me keeping other people's children in our home in ways that I could never have imagined. I realize that maybe I need to push her a little harder, expect a little more of her, and tell her how proud she makes me.

Maybe, just maybe, I have been babying her and holding her back.