Recalibration

I've been having a lot of realizations recently. Maybe its all the time I've been spending on my own after the children are asleep, but lately the lightbulb has proverbially been going on in some areas of my life that have made the daily grind a bit less abrasive.

Mostly the realization that my expectations greatly influence the outcome of any given day or situation have come off the page and become real to me in the past weeks. I keep recalling a study we looked at in my interpersonal relationships course at UT. The study, called the PAIR project, conducted by my professor, Ted Huston, followed newlyweds in a longitudinal study, and among other things, rated their satisfaction at various times throughout their marriage. One finding I remember from the study was that a person's satisfaction in their marriage corresponded more to their own expectations of what their marriage was going to be like than anything else about their relationship. That struck me then, as an engaged senior in college, with little else on the brain but getting married and having a great marriage. I gleaned from these courses some tidbits to help me be a good wife, and shared them with my fiance here and there as hints for being a good husband.

But this one tidbit has come to mind a lot these days. And has not only applied to my marriage, but also to my long days parenting. I get most frustrated when the things I want to happen in a day don't, and I get frustrated with the children because they are making these certain things not happen. I want to get down my to-do list and get on with it, and I expect them to sit together peacefully playing so that I can. But I realized that they just won't sit down peacefully and play together, and it is unfair to them to have that expectation. It's unfair because when my expectations are not met, they feel the brunt of it. Plus I put my needs over theirs, which very rarely ends in anything positive.

So it has been a process the last couple of weeks, finding balance in my expectations for the days. I can expect that the baby will take a nap at some point, and my toddler and I will have our special time for a little while. Once her attention "cup" is filled, she's ok with me doing my thing for bit. My thing being housework. Sometimes she even helps me out with the dusting. I can expect not to cross everything off my list, and that sometimes I just need to get down on the floor and have some fun.

And though, for me, it is a sacrifice not getting to everything I need to, I've found this amazing sense of freedom and balance and joy in it the past few weeks. A couple of days have thrown curve balls and it's taken a lot to recalibrate my expectations. But through prayer but not always with thanksgiving I make my requests known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding has guarded my heart and mind in Christ Jesus. I've been putting a lot of pink flowers on the owie crown lately. Pink for the joyful sacrifices.

One week til Holy Week