some thoughts on expectations
It’s the 32nd week of gestation. Kai’s going to be arriving in about two months. While I don’t think it’s possible to effectively prepare mentally for this event, I’ve been thinking a little bit about expectations for Kai (his growth, development, SAT scores, ukulele virtuosity, his ability to buy into the American dream….ya know, the usual). I actually haven’t gotten very far in thinking about any of these things……and I think that’s awesome.
I am keeping my supermom (and more importantly, superkid) aspirations of grandeur to a minimum and it’s not been difficult. The past year or so, with its ridiculous ups and down and money shortages and cancelled weddings and immigration/border drama and peeing on sticks and employment insecurity and all has been a truly excellent exercise in just letting go (it’s not been easy, but I can do it now). It has been extremely rare for things to turn out the way I had expected. In my opinion this is neither good nor bad, it simply IS.
Surely the majority of people feel dissatisfaction more than anything else when events don’t meet or exceed their presupposed expectations. What parent isn’t at least somewhat disappointed by what, how, and who their grown kids “turned out” to be? Life’s too short and far too precious to become preoccupied with such things. I am hoping to be laid-back enough to avoid this trapping of judgment when Kai is grown and does his own thing. Hopefully we’ll have twenty or so years of honest, easy, loving, and rational dialogue behind us by then to mitigate any rockiness.
Truly though, my hopes for Kai are broad and not numerous: physical functionality, a sunny to partly cloudy disposition, and this.
I hope you’ll pardon these scattered-sounding thoughts…it’s good to put them somewhere besides my head!
And….for grins and giggles….your crappy cell phone picture of the post:
Yes….that is a Yeti on a bicycle. I never thought the toddler section at the thrift store would actually have interesting things…
