self portrait Saturday: transitions

Morning coffee before the storm

This is the weekend of big changes for our little family.  L has been piecemeal moving his stuff over to the new place.  I've been working around him to rearrange furniture, assemble a new shelving, clean and generally remake this home in my own image.  Our different styles are highlighted during this process.  Him - a piece at a time, slapdash, chucked into plastic bins, remainders lingering in every room.  Me - eager for all of his accoutrements to be out and the space and time entirely mine for a fresh clean arrangement.

But it reflects the process of separating, doesn't it.  It is a gradual releasing, reclaiming, renaming and remembering.  None of it happens quickly.  The past is not gone and laid down rather it's here present in the present, which wriggles and twitches eager to be its own, while the future alternates between gleaming gold and bleak shadows.  I don't know what's real.  Other than all of it.  Other than to move through with what needs done today.  Other than expressing and engaging what feels true right now.

Little N is struggling, I think.  He asks where his dad is and why dad is there.  He's had a couple major meltdown tantrums, not specific to the changes but maybe wrought of the tension and transition he feels.  Both tantrums occurred while both his father and I were present.  When it's just me and Little N things go more smoothly.  He seems to take some comfort in me.  (Maybe his dad feels the same way when they are one on one as well.)

new shelves with our books, music, and toys.

& the long forbidden basket of blankets finally regains a place in the living room

Mommy has her own workspace for her chores and her creativity

tidied home altar

But at the end of this long day, I come back to this blog and can contentedly say, "we're ok."  My home is becoming my own, well, mine and Little N's.  We are falling into our own rhythms together.  It's a little bumpy right now and that's ok.  It's a lot of work to be the only parent around to play with, and to help, and to make sure he eats, and to hold the discipline line and get a break from it all too.  Once school starts later this week (another transition!) we'll have a more consistent pattern and that will help to smooth some of the bumps.  In the meantime, we are getting used to sharing this home, our space, just the two of us, and I think we like it.  

Little N is going to be just fine.