When my hubby and I decide to take on a project, we don’t kid around. 

Move all the furniture out of our bedroom and paint it red (the room, not the furniture), & while we’re at it, paint the girls’ room turquoise. Or dig up the backyard. And the front. Or rearrange the living room. Completely. 

This kind of behaviour makes our elder sweet pea just a tad bit uneasy. Because she doesn’t like… well… change. She likes things how she likes ’em, and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and I yam what I yam. You get the picture?

So needless to say I was on guard last weekend when we launched a total overhaul of guess-who’s room.

We’d been mulling this one over for awhile. It was a room in limbo — stuck in the awkward puddles between little girl and big girl, and home to nobody in quite the right way.

To note: a toddler train table serving (very poorly, I might add) as a desk. Board games hidden beneath said train table, and y’know what they say about outta sight, outta mind. A rocking chair that embraced, mostly, laundry. I could go on, but it’s depressing. 

So, last week my smarty-pants spouse was offered not one but TWO new jobs here in Austin, and he accepted one of them. Thus confirming that we are indeed dug in here but good. (I know, you’da thunk we’d have already grasped that since we’ve lived here — not in this house, but in this town — since we met about a thousand years ago. Guess we’re a little slow on the uptake.)

Anyway, the new job provided the motivation to grow-up the girls room, pronto. This entailed hauling everything out, shifting bunkbeds from one wall to another, getting rid of as much as possible, and building a whole new wall of shelves and a desktop. Y’know, for girls who want to write and draw sitting up like homosapiens instead of all hunched over a toddler train table. 

Fortunately, my previously-mentioned spouse is not only clever but handy, so he was up to the task. I, on the other hand, was not so sure. I was to be the emotional frontman. 

We. Are. Going. To. Redo. (pause, gulp) Your. (gulp) Room.

We are?

We are.

What do you mean EXACTLY?

So I told her. And she didn’t flinch. And then we got started and still, nothing. Except a little bit of (dare I say it) enthusiasm! I relaxed. We turned up the music and starting looking at funky little deskchairs at IKEA.com and plowing through toys that’d become obsolete.  And I’m just sittin’ pretty, thinking we’ve dodged a bullet. There would be no transition trauma. Rejoice!!!! But I didn’t say this because I’m no dope and I don’t want to plant any ideas in her head. 

Turns out I didn’t have to. Because a couple of hours into it she says, “Has anyone noticed that I don’t mind that we’re rearranging our room?”

We freeze, the rest of us. We nod, very gingerly. We gulp. 

“Yep,” she says.  “I think I might’ve outgrown that feeling.”

And now I’m thinking, if that’s true, my job as a mama might be done. A kid who can embrace change and articulate it? A kid who can recognize her own growth? A kid who’s ready for the next step? Bring it on.

But then she comes and folds all 4 foot 9 inches of arms and legs into my lap for a little congratulations hug and I hold her while her dad screws new shelves up and her sister traces her fingers through the sawdust on the floor and I think, phew. My job isn’t done. Not by a long shot.