Great Expectations

Expectation (noun): A belief that someone should or will achieve something

As a mom, so many days I wake up with great expectations.

My kids will behave and get along, I will get all the laundry done, I will do this item, and check this task of the list and everyone is going to be happy and sing Kumbaya.

Sounds amazing right?

If only it was that easy.

The only thing I have learned about expectations is that I am setting myself up for disappointment.

And then that disappointment can lead to me feeling like I am failing.

My kids start fighting. I forget to start the wash, I go to the store and forget half the items I needed and all of a sudden my day is headed downhill and I am the worst mom ever.

And of course then there is the comparing my children to one another or other children similar in age. All the milestones and what they are achieving and all the expectations I have on when they should be hitting those milestones. For instance, the twins still don’t really talk. Megan talked in sentences by the time she was their age and so many other of their peers have a full vocabulary. Their pediatrician isn’t concerned and yet because of the expectations I have put on myself and on them, and because they aren’t meeting those then clearly I must be failing as their mom in some way.

And if we are being honest, I am.

I am failing to see that the days I set no expectations for myself and especially my children, those are far and away the best.

The days where I let them be little. Days I allow them to make messes and be silly. Days I allow myself to make messes (or at least not clean them) and to be silly, those are the days that I will look back on and remember. The days when I lay in bed at night and think “today was a good day”.

The days I spend more time focused on their faces and their giggles and less on agendas and dishes are the days that really matter.

My kids don’t care if my floors are mopped. Shoot, I don’t care if my floors are mopped.  The only reason I do it is because of the expectations I think other people have of what my home should look like.

You see how that cycle works??? Ugh.

Expectations….I am over them.

There is no such thing as perfect children or the perfect mother, sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but it’s true.

Some days will be good, and some days not so much.

And that is good enough for me.