Growing up

I feel like all the pictures on my camera are somehow incongruent with the river of volatility that is running beneath the surface at our house, making it feel a tad awkward to post. Lucy never fails to be quite adorable and very kind, but there are some intense emotions surging through those veins that she is trying desperately to figure out how to manage and express. And meanwhile, her floundering parents are trying to figure out how to come to terms with all the new contradictions in their parenting. We believe in picking our battles but we also believe in the absolute necessity of consistency. We believe in distracting little one's attention from triggers but we also believe in working through emotions to grow. We believe in expressing the logical reasons for what we ask her to do but we also believe that she should listen to us simply because we are her parents. It seems pretty clear that there is no stopping all the growing up that is happening in this house - parents and kid both.