Give our Expectations to the Lord

I know kids, I have worked with them for years. But, one thing I learned in these first 2.5 months of motherhood is that working with other's kids is nothing like working with my own. Sure, it has made me more comfortable with holding a baby, changing diapers, giving a bottle...but the rest can go out the door. The sniffles are equivalent to the end of the world, and I forget that babies are allowed to cry, it's actually good for them to do it. But, Ruthie's cry evokes physical pain in my heart. I hear her cry and I swear something is seriously wrong. Going into parenthood, I had so many expectations of myself - that obviously were not reality...

I also had expectations of my little girl - and so far none have been true. I had physical expectations - I imagined a little girl who would be either as bald as a cue-ball or as hairy as a monkey. Instead, I got my baby who has monkey hair in the back, and a cue ball up front. I thought she would be chunky and blond*...she's fairly skinny (though this too may change) and her hair is staying dark (but who knows what it will look like in a year.)
I had expectations of her personality - I imagined a baby who would be a spitfire. For the first few weeks, she was an angel. After expecting her to be an angel, she turned sassy pants on us.
After she was born, I would see her do something and make assumptions that turned into expectations. She fell in love with her pluggy, she found her thumb. I thought she loved her thumb, she turned to her pluggy.
Most of the things that were unexpected weren't something that totally took me by surprise, but better than I imagined - like her sweet long little eyelashes, or her amazing personality. Others were things I totally didn't expect and I had to learn to love - like her hemangioma or her crazy faces in most pictures I take. Like this one:


I'm Ruthie, ninja girl!





Regardless, what I have learned is that she is her own person, and not a figment of my expectations. In an episode of 19 Kids and Counting Jim Bob made a comment that he "gives his expectations to the Lord." This was in reference to patience, and I think that it totally pertains there (especially when she is older and I will find myself having more serious expectations of her) but also in any expectations I have of my child. I am not called to project my expectations onto my daughter, but only to raise her in the Lord and discover who He is creating in her. That is so much more amazing to me than any expectations I could concoct. And, I mean, comeon! If I would have made my own child, it would not have been as amazing as this one:


















*I thought she would be blond because I was blond as a child...though I admit to highlighting now. See Table for Three. But, KRISTI HIGHLIGHTS HER HAIR TOO...don't let her fool you!