Reflections on a family holiday

Reflection on our all-family Christmas in Santa Fe has led me to two resolutions that I hope to make a way of life in 2014 (besides the eternal resolution to do my yoga routine more regularly).
Because my balance is sometimes more than a bit iffy, my grown children are always ready to help, and I find myself clinging to them. Now in an icy parking lot in Santa Fe, I was only too glad to have Jamie's arm, but most of the time, on dry pavement, I am just fine--even though this year I was clunking around in an orthopedic shoe on one foot. So my resolution is to be more independent--not only about walking but about living. I received a Keurig coffee maker for Christmas and my first thought was that I didn't want to figure out the set-up directions; I'd wait for my neighbor to come by. But I went ahead and did it, because there are a lot of little things like that I can do for myself...and should. I figure the more independent I am, the less likely to become a little old woman--or to have my children see me that way. It's a two-way street: I cling, and they see me as helpless. Well, I'm not and I intend to prove it. Yes, there are times I need a hand up a curb or something, and then I'll ask.
My second resolution is to be more assertive. In Santa Fe I spent way too much time at my computer or reading. Granted I was happy doing that, but I was sort of out of the loop. And sometimes I got my nose out of joint (that phrase makes my oldest son laugh). The night that son was in the hospital, my daughters went to sit at the hospital with his wife while she waited for the results of an endoscopy. Nobody said, "Mom, he's your child. Do you want to go?" The next day I mentioned that to Megan, my oldest daughter, and she said, "Mom, if you wanted to go, you should have said so." Point well taken. Sometimes the conversation rolls over whatever I try to contribute to it: from now own, I will make myself heard. And I don't like being shut out of the kitchen and kitchen decisions when they're cooking, etc. Sure, everyone makes one meal, and they do it their way. But I sometimes feel like Adam's off ox--when I ask what I can do, they wave and say "nothing." Probably that's in large part my fault--I seem comfortable at the computer, so why should they bother me. I'm going to make a real effort to assert myself and be part of the action.
So that's two--independence and assertiveness. As for that third--yoga. Yeah, I'll do it when I get rid of this boot. Though Monday, which for me starts the routine of the everyday world again, I may see what I can do with the boot on.
How about you? Did you make any realistic resolutions?

Learning to Swim

I"m reading Anna Quindlen's memoir, Plenty of Cake, Lots of Candles, a series of reflections on what she's learned over the thirty years since she began her New Yurk Times column on life in your thirties. In a chapter on parenting, she decries the tendency of today's mothers to micromanage their children's lives, never allowing them to experience failure or disappointment which, she suggests, makes them ill-prepared to face life in the real world. It doesn't allow them to possess their own triumphs--or failures.
Reading that I thought of Jacob and the swimming pool. He has hated water--even at his own birthday parties, he would dabble his feet at the edge of the pool while his cousins swam and frolicked. This spring he said to me, "My daddy says I have to learn the water, but I'm not going to." Then his summer day care program put a life jacket on him and as he told his father, he "lost the fear."
This weekend at his cousin's eighth birthday party, I saw him standing at the edge of the pool, watching the "big" kids swim freely. I surmised he was too embarrassed to put on a life jacket when all those older kids were strong swimmers. Later when I looked, he was sitting alone in the hot tub shallow portion, looking fairly lonely and forlorn. But then for some reason he put on the life jacket and joined the fray. We couldn't get him out of the pool the rest of the weekend. In the middle of the deep end? Not a problem--he just dog paddled wherever he wanted to go and shouted, "Look, Juju, I"m swimming." We could have rescued him, pitied him, etc. but we didn't, and he figured it out on his own.
Quindlen claims to have raised three perfectly fine adults without planning every minute of their existence, a sentiment that echoes my own. I was the single parent of four children and getting them to school, Scouts, etc., was all I could manage. Who thought about play dates? I remember once the mother of one of Megan's friends called to ask if Megan was free a week from Thursday. How the heck did I know? Quindlen had three children so she'd never have to play board games; worked pretty much the same way for me. Once, looking for a pre-school for Meg (her birthday just missed the cutoff date for the TCU school Colin attended), I went to one where they believed in free play--it was pandemonium and I decided she got plenty of that at home.
Like Quindlen, I have wonderful adult children--they are close to each other and all of them seem to love me. They are contributing citizens with good jobs, and best of all, they're great parents.  I always thought it was sheer damn good luck. Now I wonder if it was benign neglect. Whatever, they survived and so did I--without many play dates!