Gifts

Cornflower and Mariel gave me my schoolroom back this week, and Triss gave me a desk.

Last year we allowed Mariel to move into the schoolroom so that she and Cornflower could each have their own space. We moved the computer into the great room and did school in there, or at the kitchen table. I moved my supplies into the kitchen, the linen closet, the master closet. I hung posters in the children's bathroom, and put up the timeline in the hall. It was fine, if a little restricted.

But this week the girls asked if they could move back in together. At first I hesitated. Mariel's bed is heavy and must be taken apart and put back together. I am not good with tools, not at all. But Triss convinced me that she could handle it. She is good with her hands, and I knew she had watched when her Daddy took the bed apart last time. For some crazy reason, I agreed to try.

It took us all of yesterday, but we did it. Triss was able to identify the tools we needed (phillips and flat-head screwdrivers, an allen wrench and a mallet) and also use them resourcefully. (Yes, she had to teach me to use the long end of the allen wrench as a lever because it provides more torque. And she reminded me later when I again tried to use the short end. Did I mention I am not mechanically minded?)

We decided to take Triss' large desk out from underneath her loft bed and put it into the new (old) schoolroom, since we no longer have a table in there. It is the length of a twin bed and Triss and I plan to share it. She was extremely excited by this, because she has been trying to convince her father and me to let her rearrange her room for months, but because of the size of her room and the bulk of her loft-bed-and-desk, we kept refusing. She has now moved her non-loft bed next to the window, and is very pleased.

(Triss, who is reading this as I type it, says she is "very, very pleased!")

A couple of times that day I thought we were going to have to leave pieces of furniture, partially dismantled, throughout the house, but Triss came through, figuring out what we needed and how to work it.

Mariel and Cornflower, in a display of unity that did one good to see, arranged their room, deciding to sleep on the top full-size bunk and make the bottom full-size bunk into a playroom for their dolls and stuffed animals. They did not once complain about moving all of Mariel's things from schoolroom to great room and from great room to bedroom.

So today we moved things out of the kitchen, linen closet, master closet, etc., and back into the schoolroom. We have left the computer in the great room, however, because I really like it being out where everyone in the house can see. (It's kind of funny, because the TV is in an armoire on one side of the room and the computer is in a similar armoire on the other side-- dueling media, lol!)

(Triss, who is still reading as I type, says it is symmetrical. She likes symmetrical. She is a lot like her daddy. It does look nice.)

I made large colorful labels on all the bins and containers for those of us who forget where things go, and rejoiced in the fact that I now have a closet to store things in. I don't know what we were thinking when we had this house built without a closet in the schoolroom. We hung all the dress-up clothes in the closet, stacked craft supplies and extra posters on the top shelf and covered the mirrored front with posters.

Mariel and I cleared off a space on the bookcase in the schoolroom and put all of her schoolbooks there. It is now her own shelf. I made a similar one for Cornflower, and stocked it with her books for the coming year. She was suitably impressed.

I found the box with all the kids' papers from last year and the year before, and Triss went through and set them in stacks according to kid. These stacks are now on the floor of the schoolroom awaiting further attention. We are going to organize them according to subject and date tomorrow, and put them in folders or binders (I haven't decided). Then we will set them aside and continue our journey of education.

I feel a spaciousness in the house tonight, full of possibilities and hope.