Expectations are funny because they’re rarely met. It’s pretty safe to say the more you’re expecting something to go a certain way the more you can prepare that it likely won’t. Because how we envision things rarely (ever?) happen as we think. So we must learn to laugh. Laughing is good. I’m doing a lot of laughing in mamahood.
Since my current life remains a crazy swirl of packing and goodbyeing (and schooling and mothering and all the other roles), I figured today I’d laugh about some unmet expectations. Because there are many and thinking back to my pregnancy season and the first few months of mamahood has been funny.
So here are three stories about things not going as expected.
First, below you will see the pretty picture of our pristine white crib. I took this photo just weeks before Eloise was born. While I had surrendered to the fact that I wouldn’t have an official nursery, I did have a crib! And I was one proud wifey the night Mark put that crib together. I watched with glowing pregnant-mama eyes dreaming about the day I’d bring our little babe home and place her into it. Just the next day I carefully picked out the sweet sheets to go on it, laid out those dreft-smelling swaddles, and snapped this photo.
The current reality is that Eloise is 4.5 months old and has yet to sleep in her crib once. In fact, as I write this her crib is upside down in a corner of our living room waiting to be dismantled by Mark once he gets over the fact that he will have to take apart the whole thing before she ever sleeps one night in it. Expectation of beautiful crib life straight off Pinterest definitely not met.
I also remember being so excited for newborn photos to be taken just after she was born, with all her wrinkles in full site and the falsity of a sleeping, peaceful baby beautifully framed forever. I imagined holding onto this photo as a keepsake for years to come, pulling it out to one day show Eloise of her little peaceful self captured in all its sweetness.
Real life told a different story. The day we were discharged from the hospital was the day the photographer came knocking at our door to take pictures. No one tells you that your room is a revolving door of doctors and nurses for the 48 hours you are in the hospital. Or that there is absolutely no consoling a hungry baby. Or that in your exhaustion you will likely have no idea who is before you, why they are there, or what they even want from you. But there the woman was, camera in hand ready to snap some pics. But there was also a hungry baby and deliriously tired parents. And that combo made for pictures like none other.
Here you have it, our very first newborn photo forever captured.
And then there was the fact that somehow I never considered my own recovery after having Eloise. I didn’t have complications with her birth, so I somehow thought I would instantly bounce back to normal life. I think in reality, I had no clue the level of ibuprofen I was being dished out every few hours at the hospital.
So we came home and the next morning the weather was beautiful and I was ready to get outside. I had been home from the hospital for about 24 hours and hadn’t taken any meds, so I popped 1 measly ibuprofen and told my mom and Mark that we should go for a walk. So we tucked Eloise in my wrap and headed off.
Within about 10 steps, I noticed my mom and Mark walking way faster than I was comfortable with. I asked them to slow it on down and we continued forward. I had in my mind that we would walk a nice leisurely 1 mile. Instead we went the half block of our condo complex (50 yards?) and headed home.
I didn’t leave the couch for another 3 days.
Happy Friday, friends. Next time I write, it’s from our new home in FLORIDA!
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