Oh Katherine, sometimes it's hard to be the middle child!  Tonight at dinner, Maggie was complaining about her bee sting (?) from earlier in the afternoon, and how much it hurt. And Abby was whining about her scratched off bug bite/band-aid on her arm. Both being rather dramatic, but Chris and I were working on ignoring them (nicely!)

I noticed Katherine hadn't been eating, and asked what was wrong. She looked at me with a quivering lip and whispered, "I need to talk to you in private!"

What the what?

OK, so I took her up stairs, and asked her what was bothering her. She burst into sobbing tears and managed to tell me that she was feeling left out, because she didn't have anything that hurt, and that we were giving all of our love to the other girls and didn't have any left for her.

Wwwwhhhhhhaaattt?

So, after I held her and let her cry for a moment while I squeezed the breath out of her, we got calmed down, and I reassured her that a Mom has enough love for all of her children no matter how many she has. And that even though I might have to help the other girls sometimes, I still always loved her.  We talked for a bit, particularly about Gram, and how she had SIX kids to love and we all got enough.
I told her even if I was in China and she was in Wisconsin I would love her, and even when she moved into her own apartment I would still love her. And she felt better, and we were able to return to our dinner.

It was crazy, and unexpected, but I praised her for telling me what was bothering her, and reminded her that she could always come and tell me when something was bothering her, no matter what it was.

But whoa, where did that burst of emotion come from?