Well what were you expecting anyway?

Expectations, Reality, and How They Mesh.

Have you met Phoenix? He’s our youngest son who is slowly becoming not so young anymore.

Phoenix’s model face // 📷 by Jess

The mythological legend of the phoenix is about a magical bird that lives for hundreds of years, and at the end of its great life blazes away in flames and is reborn into a new bird from the ashes.

That's not why we named him Phoenix though. We don’t think our 7-year-old is some reincarnated being back for another trip here on earth. We just liked the name.

But, our Phoenix Lee Castles is frequently described as a fireball. When he gets hot-tempered, he gets hot. So I guess the name fits in a way.

It was at least -5° here and Phoenix still compained about being hot.

One thing I love about him is how big he dreams. A present he received for Christmas this year was a cash register with pretend money, coins, a calculator, and even a credit card reader with his very own credit card. After opening it and playing with it some, he looked over and said "Do we have any cardboard boxes? I want to make a store to sell stuff with my new cash register?" These are usually the moments where it's really easy for me to unintentionally squash his dreams with what seems to be a growing, age-induced "reality check" that I am working to rid myself of. I never want my imagination to wane due to perceived obstacles of reality.

But luckily, in stepped my mother-in-law in a way that only she can and helped Phoenix build his dream toy store out of old cardboard boxes, pieces of furniture, curtains, and tape.

'Phoenix's Toy Store'

I'd say the picture in his mind he had for his store ended up just about how he expected it to be, and all was right in the world.

When Phoenix gets an idea in his brain, nothing can convince him that it will play out differently. Until of course, things play out differently.

Sometimes the "play out differently" ends up exceeding his thoughts. Like when he told Jessica that he didn't want her to make him Maple-Brown-Sugar Oatmeal out of ingredients we had at home because he wanted the small, pre-mixed brown packets of Maple-Brown-Sugar Oatmeal and they tasted way better than what she could make. After a few minutes of begrudgingly eating what Jessica made him, he mumbled "Actually this tastes good. I like it."

Expectations > Exceeded

But most of the time, what is created in his mind ends up being way bigger / extreme than what reality has to offer. One of my favorites was just this New Year's Eve.

Me, Jess, Caryn, Ken, Endy, Phoenix, and Jude on NYE.

We let all three of our boys stay up until midnight so they could "see the ball drop." Our kids are super flexible when it comes to a sleep routine, but still, midnight is late for a 7-year-old! Phoenix started to crash early but did everything he could to keep himself awake for the big moment.

The countdown began, and we had the New York City broadcast on an iPad for him to watch (because at the same time, the Ohio State Buckeyes were losing the game of the year on the TV). We all counted down from ten as the ball slowly descended, all of the adults trying to make this moment exciting for our three boys, while simultaneously bouncing our eyes and attention to the Buckeye’s heart-wrenching loss. Then, it was midnight. We had officially turned the page on 2022 into 2023.

Buckeye game up top, NYE countdown on bottom.

We cheered for the new year, sighed at the football game results, and then I looked down at Phoenix. He had a stoic look on his face that I thought was exhaustion and said "I didn't see the ball drop. Where was it?"

To which I replied, "It was on that tower thing dropping down slowly, and when it hit zero lights lit up, confetti cannons were shot, and everyone cheered. That was the ball drop!"

He didn't want anything of that. He flopped down on the couch and buried his head in the pillows. I knew trying to explain / reason / talk about it at 12:15am would amount to nothing more than a lot of tears, so we all headed to bed.

The next morning, I did my best to explain what happened at the end of the countdown with the New York City Ball Drop. He seemed to get it, so I asked,  "Did the New Year's Eve ball drop not end up how you expected?"

As he ate his breakfast, he simply said:

"No. I thought the ball drop was when a giant ball would crash down from outer space into a building. Like it would explode."

Expectations > Unmet

Only Phoenix.

It’s easy to be let down by unmet expectations we build up in our minds. I do it all the time. Most of the time the expectations I create are toward myself, and most of the time I am let down. I’ve always had a massive inner critic, surely we all do, maybe mine is really big. I don’t think I realized how often I did this to myself and to such great lengths until the last few years.

So I, like my 7-year-old Phoenix, am working on creating more realistic expectations and then living through the ones unmet with deep joy, understanding, and even forgiveness at times. And that’s ok. I’m still learning, and I’m not pretending like I have it all together.

I could list out the expectations I’m living with right now for you and it would probably be pages and pages long. I’m sure you could too.

I always expected that Phoenix’s “Tasmanian devil energy” would be unstoppable. But over the last few months, he’s had those weird moments where as a parent you look and think “something is happening”.

Phoenix knocked out and running fever in a moving bed (Cosco grocery cart).

Jessica took him for a blood test and we got back results that show something is happening. We’re right in the middle of figuring it out, and it very well could be incredibly minor that will be an easy fix, but when you expect no bumps in the road (unrealistic), and then there’s a bump in the road (realistic), and you decide to become Dr. WebMD, it shakes you a little bit.

It also makes you appreciate the everyday norm a little bit more.

Living today meeting expectations as best as I can, and being ok when they’re unmet.