Metamorphoses....

A lot of ingenuity went into acquiring this coveted game...

We are all changing in big ways, here, just now.

Change of this nature usually comes with a certain degree of, and maybe happens because of, turbulence. Children stretching toward adulthood sometimes make sudden great leaps forward, or skid back on the slippery gravel of maturity....

There are few constants, in children. They are change in human form, metamorphosis occurring in our own homes, whether we are paying attention or not.

Insights and new perspectives for us all. Annalise has become, of a sudden, not only an independent reader, but an avid, engaged seeker of meaning in the written word. She received a copy of The Care and Keeping of You, an American Girl book about the tween to teen years, and the buffet of changes already beginning, for her. She is happy to know that she is not the only girl her age who has had a resurgence of nightmares.

We have had lots of snow. Maybe about a foot, in two substantial storms, thankfully both after Winter Storm Draco, which blew off our rubberized roofing material.

The kids have been outside a lot. They've been with their Kindles a lot, and Annalise was overjoyed when Jim found her3DS in the couch on Christmas morning. It had been lost since last spring, and she had missed it greatly (it was loaded with pictures, including some of Margot, who died in September, and great apps, some of which she had bought herself.).

Annalise's half birthday cupcakes.  Delicious!

We've had some turmoil, but these moments are less frequent and, on the whole, far less intense, as time goes by.

We spend a lot of time, here, talking about how to get along, practicing negotiation skills, reflecting on mistakes we've made, and searching for better answers and ways of being together. We don't only do it when there is a disagreement. It's part of life, like feeding the pets, traveling, learning, snuggling, and the type of chatter that makes talking about how we connect and relate natural and non-threatening.

We are all building tool boxes of sorts, individualized to our ways of perceiving others, dealing with others, and our specific natures and experiences. We are all learning, and the result is that, when there is the inevitable conflict, we have more skills to bring to bear to deal, not with attempting to win, but to the issue at hand, so that everyone can be heard and know that what matters to them will be considered.

Annalise Sedona, age eight and a half! 

There is so much in our lives that does not fit into a frame most people will understand. So very much gets assumed, and many people never question those assumptions. Some, maybe, don't even know that they believe as they do, because they are not of an introspective nature.

I've been questioning assumptions for a few years, now, and shedding them...the last few weeks have been a rather intense self-examination and deepening, as epiphanies and new understandings have come almost so quickly that they trip over each other!

I would share these, if I could, but most are deeper than words, and not easy to express, with language. I suspect they will reveal themselves, as echoes and shadings in my writing and my living.