Radical Acceptance and (the Massive Parenthood Lesson I am Learning in) Adjusting Expectations

Recently my husband and I took our first  vacation with our baby to visit family in Florida. After a whirlwind return to work, I was looking forward to the break with anxious anticipation, remembering our last visit to Cocoa Beach a few years ago, where we did excursions, tanned on the beach, ate delicious food and slept in to our hearts content.

Fast forward to the actual trip and what felt like whole days spent in the rental car alone with my daughter, air conditioning blasting as I wrangled us both into a comfortable position for breastfeeding and felt the dreaded FoMo. (To be clear, my husband is a fantastic support; alas modern science has not engineered a means of allowing men to breastfeed.) 

I started to resent the fact that she just needed me so much and then I cried almost every night about how guilty I felt about resenting her for needing me. My unkind inner dialogue was along the lines of “No sh*t she needs you, she’s a baby! This is what you signed up for.” And then I cried some more because I was a sleep deprived hormone soup.

My daughter was just 4 months old when we went on this trip last month, so a big part of my brain is still adjusting to the shift of parenthood and all that entails-including considering her needs in a way that I simply didn’t have to before she existed. I feel a bit selfish sharing that, but I think it’s important to be honest about where the feelings were coming from. And sure enough, once I sat with my feelings for a bit, I discovered that  I didn’t actually resent my daughter but more the unrealistic expectations I had put on this family vacation in the first place. 

A part of me knew that trying to do all the excursions like we did several years ago was simply not realistic, much less with a baby. I had already talked about this with my husband before we made the trip, and we made a plan to be more strategic in deciding what we wanted to do each day. 

Unlike God, babies don’t just laugh when you make plans-they blow out their diapers moments before you need to leave the house or they puke all over everything aplumb, like the divine comedic anarchists that they are. And then they look at you and laugh, because babies are also adorable. 

Once I finally let go of these vacation expectations and let myself just be in my feelings about it, it gave me more space to enjoy the time I *was* having instead of feeling upset that it wasn’t somehow different, better, more polished and Instagram worthy. 

Yep, I’m talking about radical acceptance, friends-a gorgeous and deceptively simple concept from Dialectical Behavior Therapy that entails noticing your big hard feelings and, instead of pushing them away or trying to change them, simply giving them space to be what they are in reality. Without fail, this always makes me feel at least a little better when I get out of my own head and practice it.

So I did spend some quality time in the car reconnecting with my cousin, hearing about her adventures after graduating college and feeling proud that she has become such a strong leader in her community. 

We watched a rocket launch from the beach that lit up the night sky like a firework, and I watched my husbands face light up the next day during another rocket launch, sharing his passion for space exploration with our daughter.

Most importantly, we got to introduce my daughter to more of her family members and watch the joy on their faces as they loved on her. My aunt taught her patty cake and my uncle showed us what he was learning on guitar and we told lots of stories about my mom and grandmother which made me laugh (and cry).

The process of making memories doesn’t have to be this big perfect production because that is literally impossible. These simple moments are the memories I want to take home from this trip. I’m working on accepting the rest as part of the process. 

(Oh, and that “picture perfect” vacation I kept comparing this to? I glossed over the part about my husband getting super sunburned and losing his glasses in the ocean on that trip-which has only recently become a funny story we can joke about. I love you, John!)