Great Expectations

I love our weekends at home, particularly after a string of busy travel weekends. With the weather feeling hopeful, I had high hopes for a relaxing family day this Saturday.

Our agenda for the weekend included groceries, play time outside, a run for me, baking and cooking, golf for Blake, Aunt Amy and Uncle Chris' baby shower on Sunday, and of course, sleep. Groceries were first on the list. Blake and I were a bit (OK, a lot) short with each other Saturday morning as we attempted to construct a grocery list and menu plan for the coming week, maybe because of the last two weeks of sickness and sleepiness combined with jet lag and the time change. It took much debate and too much time to get us out the door. It felt even more painful in my mind, because I had such great expectations for our weekend. This vibe rang through our day until I went for a run in the afternoon and Blake took Anna to the park. We had some space and time to chill, and when we met back at the house, we played outside. At the end of the day, we did have some fun...

Anna loved playing in the leaves.

Most of the time was actually spent removing leaves from her mouth. Apparently they taste like candy.

It seems that our morning exhausted Anna so much that she actually passed out in the car on the way to the grocery store, and she slept for 70 minutes, something she NEVER does while driving. Then, that evening, for the first time EVER, she slept for 12 hours straight. I went to bed early and woke BEFORE she did, wondering, as a worrisome mom does, why she never woke up. I had no expectations for sleep this weekend. It was a wonderful, unexpected gift that Blake and I relished over blueberry pancakes that morning.

I notice this happens a lot: I have high expectations that aren't met, I get upset for a while, and then things turn around. And, sometimes, actually a lot of the time, the unexpected happens. It reminds me of the conversation that Blake and I had about a year ago when we, for the first time since Anna's birth, went out together. We contemplated out loud the theme of our first months with a new baby, and I suggested the theme would be "No Expectations." Blake, maybe more accurately, suggested instead that the theme would be "Expect Everything." I guess this theme still applies to our lives today.

By the way, after the lengthy list-making fiasco, we decided that, from now on, our menu and grocery list will be compiled throughout the week so that it's DONE by the time we do our shopping. And, we are rotating the shopping responsibility. One week Blake will do it on Monday evening, one week I will do it with Anna on Monday morning, and one week we will do it as a family on Saturday or Sunday. We'll see how this new experiment works out!