Daily Affirmations with Donald Winnicott

So my year is going well, though I still haven't located a source for Day of the Dead-themed magnetic grocery list pads.

But I did pick up a Mexican Talavera bathroom sink instead.

No. I really did. It was considerably more expensive than my first idea for domestic bliss.

The contractor arrives to demolish the old bathroom on Monday.

But that's not what I wanted to discuss today. Today, a chilly January Saturday, I have four beautiful children under my wing. They are playing Risk at the dining table behind me as I write this. Everything is good. So..what?

I have this friend, see, this marvelous friend, whom I won't name, though I will point you to her blog right here...this marvelous friend, who not only likes but loves me, and lets me know everyday that she values me..and, see, well...

She's just better at stuff than me. She has this touch with all things domestic and many things worldly. She is smart, beautiful, usually calm, almost always happy, a terrific writer who has now does radio commentary, a stunning knitter, and now a glass artist, starting a new business making stained-glass windows.

Yes. She is that kind of person.

And she is absolutely marvelous with children. You could leave your kid with her for a day and a half--I have done it for three--and she will never bat an eye, and you can leave secure in the notion that your kid is if anything having a BETTER time with her than at home with you.

At the end of the day, time spent at her house is infinitely more peaceful and happy than time spent at mine.

And it's not the bathroom demolition, though that won't help any. It's just that if I have four kids, I have three bagels, and even if I can set the table nicely, I still have boxes of windowblinds waiting to be hung in the dining room.

But I remind myself that Anne would and will tell me that she doesn't love me for the number of bagels I keep in the house, and she wouldn't love me more if I suddenly grew an aptitude for crafts and could knit my way out of a paper bag. She trusts me with her kid.

The literature on raising kids actually singles out a person like me for special praise. Nine years ago, when we were having our babies, my friend Jamie directed me to the concept of the "good-enough mother," in the words of Donald Winnicott:

"The good-enough mother...starts off with an almost complete adaptation to her infant's needs, and as time proceeds she adapts less and less completely, gradually, according to the infant's growing ability to deal with her failure" (Winnicott, 1953)

So that's me, right on target, not by strategy but by nature: confessing to my daughter finally that there is a ten-minute slice of my day--the time when I am changing from work clothes to home clothes--when I don't want to hear her calling me unless something is on fire. Or Playing Family Hold Back with my kids on the milk and bagels. Or shifting the piles in the dining room to the piles in the basement, like that's going to help my housekeeping.

And here's me, looking in my best friend's son's eyes, seeing that he's doing fine here playing Risk and chilling with my stepson, stepdaughter, and daughter.

And here's me, looking in the funhouse mirror of my blog-post, saying with Stuart Smalley,

"I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with. "