Expectations

Last week after I wrote about the epic fail morning, I got a call from my little sister. And even though she may be younger than me by a few years, she's always been the "common sense - give it to you straight" voice that I need to hear.  That day was no exception.

She started in by saying, "I just read your blog post.  You are a great writer, but I've got to tell you -- your day didn't really sound that bad.  What's your deal?"  (Typical sister real talk going on here...)

I explained that maybe I didn't go into ALL of the detail about how the convo with Abby's teacher went down and how bad I felt leaving the school feeling like her behavior was direct result of my actions.  I also didn't go into that much detail on the blog about how we were so close to being late to school and I lost my cool as the girls were getting out the door.  Either way, she reminded me of a piece of advice that I have been known to give to my other mommy friends when they are freaking out about life's messes.  Lower your expectations. Sometimes it's fair to ask if maybe your expectations are too high... Maybe a clean house, clean kids, home cooked dinner, great day at work, perfect bed routine, perfect morning routine kind of day is just a little bit unreasonable to attain. And on the off chance it does happen, then congratulations, the stars aligned for you that day!

My husband is an avid fisherman.  He loves it. He literally does not know when to quit and sometimes he chases the dream of the very rare day where fishing is at it's best and stories that he can tell his buddies about are created.  Most fishing trips aren't so lucky. But he still goes. He still enjoys the experience.  Optimistic, sure. He'll be out on the water ALL day casting away, thinking, "this is the one" and it doesn't happen. Eventually the sun sets and they pull the boat in and call it a day. Whether he caught 10 or caught none, he had fun.  If his expectation was to break records every trip, he would have quit fishing a long, long time ago.

As odd as this sounds, I need to take a lesson from Dan's fishing style. Every day may not be the perfect catch kind of day - but it still can be fun.  The girls are so cute and say the best things. They love each other and they love their family. They are developing their own voice and cherish their time together, given that time has really dwindled since Caroline started kinder.  They do get incredibly distracted at times and have MAJOR opinions on their choice of outfit - regardless of appropriateness, and frankly that's ok. My expectation of every morning operating like clockwork should at this point in our life,  just go out the window.  All I need to do is make sure I'm caffeinated and carry on... Is there room for improvement in our overall routine, yes - - but do I need to kill myself when things go crazy, NO.

And yes, you may wonder how our mornings have gone since last week and I'll just say - they've been a hot mess.  Waking up the girls at 6:30 AM is HARD!  If I let them sleep in, they seem to think they still have the same amount of time to get ready... Sense of urgency is apparently a hard thing to learn at the age of 5 - forget about 2.  The only thing at this point that is going to change is how I react to the crazy.  And honestly maybe her first tardy might be a good lesson for her to learn in the long run!

xoxo
jessica