Greetings!

One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to throw away, actually send to the recycling box, papers, articles, notes, etc. that I haven’t looked at in years and obviously no longer need. I came across a list of resolutions written several years ago, when my children were 5 and 22 months. It brought me back to that January. " We had just moved to a new city where we knew no one. My oldest daughter just started kindergarten and my youngest daughter was still in diapers. We were living in an apartment with half our stuff while building a house across town. Did I mention, we knew no-one? Our lives pretty much revolved around our family and getting settled.

The list is actually a pretty good one. My current day comments are in brackets.
Here’s the list:

1. Give both kids equal time.

[Looking back, I think I accomplished this one. Lizzie after all was a toddler and sometimes required way more time than her older sister, who had the advantage of going to full day kindergarten and lots of stimulation.]

2. Take as many photos of Liz as I did of Hannah when she was Lizzie’s age.

[Sad to say, I was not as successful on this one. Lizzie is not thrilled with me about that. I’ll have to make it up to her in some way.]

3. Read to both children every night – no matter how tired I am. (If they are tired and want to go to sleep-give them a rain check for tomorrow.)

[They were almost never that tired.]

4. Accept being corrected by a child with grace and humor.

[I was amazed how many books my children knew by heart. They would correct me if, when I was tired, I summarized the stories in their books in my own words. They also reminded their dad and me not to say, “hate” or other “bad words”.]

5. Always carry tissues – do not allow any “green elevens”.

[One of my pet peeves. “Green elevens” refers to what kids carry on their upper lip when they have a cold with a runny nose. I also went through lots of moist towelettes. Fortunately, my kids take care of this themselves now.]

6. Learn to make French Braids – Practice on their dolls.

[I never did master this one.]

7. Follow through on the “most solemn promise” I made with the kids to do everything I could to help them make friends in our new town if they would do the same for me.

[Everybody accomplished this. Our closest friends are the ones we met when we first moved here. It’s true that when you have kids the parents of their friends tend to make up most of your family’s social network.]

8. Catch the kids at being good.

[I sure hope I did this a lot.]

9. Learn the words to “I’m My Own Grandpa”.

[ I never accomplished learning this great silly song but being a family therapist I did listen to it a lot and actually made a “genogram”, a sort of family tree, to see if it could be possible. It is. Check out the words at www.songlyrics.com.]

10. Try to do at least one grown-up thing every week.

[Looking back I’m struck by how kid focused this list is. That’s where my family was at then and that’s where I needed to be. Now that my kids are older I’m still very involved in their lives but it’s much easier to do grown up things. I also know I’m really going to miss all the kid focused stuff once they’re grown. Oh well, there’s always grandchildren.]

Happy 2008,
Bette

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