Expecting Again

Nope.  Still not it.  Not a baby.  Even though my apparently insane sweet husband said to RG the other morning, "Riley girl, you need a baby brother."  To which I respond really?  REALLY?  As though she's not still a baby?? Yes, really.  He really said that.  But no. Not a baby.  We're talking expectations.  Again.

See, husband?
That's a baby you're holding right thar.
A giant baby, yes, but she's still a baby.
BAE-BEE.
Babies do not need baby brothers.
I don't know how much more clear I can be on that point.

Sometimes I wonder how I can still be learning this same lesson.  How can it be taking me so long to figure this out.  But somehow I am.  Expecting things of myself.  Expecting things of Riley, of Husband, of Duke.    Things like for RG to take a longer-than-twenty-seven-minutes nap, or for myself to have time to blog, and ideas to write about.  Expecting Handsome to just know that I feel a little trapped sometimes and need time out of the house.  Expecting a schedule to emerge from our chaos, because "they" say it does.  Bah.  I see no schedule.  I see no "regular" day.   

I know that you say I'm "ahead of the curve" and "doing great".  Thanks for that.  But at the same time, it still feels so much like floundering.  Like groping my way along in the dark.  I'm tired of feeling like I am missing the mark.  I don't think much is actually going to change around here with regards to that, but I know that I can change my perspective.  And I'm going to do it on here, on this b-log, so that (1) I stay accountable to working on it, (2) I have easy fodder for blog posts [just being real] and (3) we can all see the faithfulness of God as he works out my heart and teaches me grace and peace.  So in May, I'm going to attempt to do a 31-days thing, where I talk about the same thing for 31 days.  *YAY*

I'm not telling you the actual 31-days topic yet because I'm not exactly sure what is needed to combat these unreasonable and totally without-grace expectations everyone loves a surprise, right?  But be sure to check back on May 1 when I kick it off!  Happy end of April, y'all.  

xoxo, M.

An Unreasonably Expectant Mother

I'm not expecting, not like that. Sillies. We're not even at the 6-week mark yet. But all the same, I've been the other type of expecting mother- one with expectations.

It's kind of impressive to me how far off I was in my expectations. I'm not even sure where I got my ideas of how out should go, "it" being anything to do with my baby girl and her daily goings ons. I didn't even realize how much I expected or of both her and I until I emerged from my hormone-induced fog and could pinpoint what was upsetting me. And I didn't start to feel better until I released some most all of those (unreasonable) expectations.

The Woombie.
AKA - Baby straight jacket.
We love it!

If I expected to get sleep and didn't, I was a wreck. This was probably the hardest one to let go of. Because letting go of an expectation means no longer expecting that thing that you previously expected.  In simple terms, I had to not expect to sleep.  Which is kind of like expecting to not sleep.  Which was terrifying for a little while there.  But if I laid RG down, and instead of hoping & wishing for her to sleep, if I said "This probably won't work, but it's worth a try." and she didn't sleep, I was fine.  Because that was what I expected.  And if she did sleep, when I did't expect her to?  Bonus!