This is a submission to the September theme of the IndieWeb Carnival.

Children definitely have interests of their own. Charlie loves monster trucks, trains, and any kind of construction vehicle. Just as often, they pick up our interests and become interested in them, too. When thinking about what “second person birds” meant to me as a theme for this month, I couldn’t get that second-hand interest out of my head.

Amanda and I try hard to include Charlie in our interests, showing him what we like about them, discussing them with him, and letting him try them out to the extent possible. It isn’t that we are trying to get him to like the things that we like, it is that we are trying to introduce him to as much as we can and model for him what being interested in something looks like so that he can learn to explore and nurture his own interests.

I love pointing out different kinds of birds to Charlie when we are outside, and I have a few tri-fold guides that we both look at frequently. I’m amazed at the birds he can correctly identify, and I love seeing his face light up when he points them out to me as he notices them, which he often does before me:

• Robins
• Doves
• Pileated woodpeckers
• Hawks (in general)
• Geese
• Ducks (in general)
• Crows
• Hummingbirds
• Cormorants
• Turkey
• Barred owls (he does a great job on their call, better than mine!)

These are all Second Person Birds. Birds learned and identified by my son, picked up from my interest. These might even be third person birds, as I probably picked up the interest from my Mom.

The picking up of interests goes both ways, too. I’ve learned more about different kinds of construction vehicles and their jobs through Charlie than I knew before he was here. Amanda and I often notice them even when Charlie isn’t with us, and we can’t help ourselves from telling him later what we saw. Those, too, are Second Person Birds.