Equalibrium and disequalibrium

[pegkerr]

I mentioned that things are going rather well with Delia lately. This is a pleasant change.

Which means that it must be time for Fiona to enter disequalibrium, and right on schedule, that is what has happened. Come to think of it, she was in an equally bad state when school started last year. She has come back from camp mentally rumpled, with a tendency toward teariness--she has cried herself to sleep the least three nights. And she can't in the least explain why; she is perplexed at her own moodiness and has no idea what is going on.

She is also insisting, even more stridently, that she wants her own room.

This makes me want to cry myself.

I think we have definitely entered puberty. I don't feel ready for this.

I can't give up my office entirely.

Damnation.

Comments

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

That has been mentioned, and I'd like to do something. Part of the problem is that the girls have so much damn stuff.

Rob and the girls really do not see this as a problem (I really am fighting a losing battle). But it really limits how much rearranging in the room we can do. Yeesh.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

One of the very best dividers I have ever seen is a kind of 'wall' with shelves and containers. If the room can possibly be divided, with one of these setups, the girls could get their stuff organized AND have their own space.

Target also has them, or at least some Targets do.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That's the best idea I've seen so far.

Other options seem to be getting rid of the junk in the basement and moving your office in there (if you're worried about the non-code windows in a sleeping area) or building a playhouse that will at least provide some private space.

Up until I was twelve (when I left India and got my own room) my parents and I lived in a one-room space. Literally, one room with three beds on one side and a sort of living room in the rest of it, no dividers. I survived by making the local library and some outdoor hang-outs my private space.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I did not live in those circs, but I lived in a very small house with far too many people--especially when half-siblings showed up and needed to be shoehorned in. my sister and I fought hideously. I too learned to hang at the library, and in a tree--my sister, the popular one, ended up spending a lot of time at her friends'. So I sympathize with the girls' wish for more space...and I sometimes think if we'd just had cubbies dividing our room so we had the semblance of privacy, and our own things there and a bit of our own taste instead of everything-shared-everything-pink, we would have done better.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I hung out in a tree too! No wonder we get along so well.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I agree with the others that you should keep your office, and let Fiona carve out a private as-needed space somewhere else (or even a changeable space, depending on what other people are doing at the moment. Might even involve her sitting on the porch or the back yard if the weather is reasonable). However, if she expresses interest in a 'divider' of some sort in her room, maybe even a Japanese screen of some sort, you can make "getting rid of stuff" the obvious requirement, pointing out that it won't work otherwise.

I remember entering the want-to-cry-for-no-reason stage, and it was unnerving. Time to start finding some books on the subject for her, maybe.