Greetings from my couch! It’s been three weeks since my post about how I managed to break both ankles while walking across my driveway, so it is time for an update. I’m trying hard not to make this the “Blog About Lisa’s Ankles,” and I certainly don’t want to imply that there aren’t far more important problems in the world right now. But there is a parenting point here, so bear with me.

My right ankle, the less injured of the two, is healing well, and I can use it nicely to crutch around. The left ankle was plated and pinned by a surgeon two weeks ago, and last week I graduated from the overstuffed post-surgical cast (it was like carting a watermelon around on my foot) to a plastic and velcro boot contraption. Now I wait three more weeks before I am allowed to put any weight at all on the left foot. But the good news is I am allowed to remove the boot to sleep and shower, so my life has greatly improved. The downside is that I get to see my withered, floppy calf at least twice a day, making it inescapably clear that physical therapy is going to take awhile.

When I wrote about my accident in the first place, I said that watching my sons come running to my rescue provided “one of those remarkable parenting moments when you watch your children take charge.” I have been thinking back on that moment often over the past few weeks, and even more so after Anna Quindlen’s resonant essay here last week describing the particular joy of parenting adults. READ MORE