It was around this time 11 years ago that my marriage started making the transition from two people to three (and eventually more).

A lot of our friends tell us that the transition into marriage (from one person to two people) was a traumatic change for them and perhaps the toughest year of their lives. We found the transition into marriage to be very manageable, while the transition to parenting was much more challenging. You can read some of our transition story here (or a longer version here).

Where are you today when it comes to having children? Are you talking about it more as a couple? Are you on the same page about when and whether to start trying? Are you worried about the costs or the effect on your marriage?

Wherever you are on the process, I think you'll appreciate the new article collection that was recently added to the Focus on the Family marriage area called "Preparing to Start a Family."

There was a surreal moment during my Sunday school class last week when the subject of football came up. The discussion was on how leisure time works in marriage. And since there's nothing more leisurely for a man (meaning me) than watching football, the matter was broached rather quickly. One of the wives tried to understand why her husband watches hours and hours of football when just catching the 10 minute highlights could save so much time. The other women nodded. I booed. Literally.

One brave visitor tried to explain the experience of watching football, maybe hoping the problem was a lack of appreciation. It seems though that the issue is not appreciation, but the commitment it requires. My wife likes to joke that I watch football like I'm getting paid to, and that it's not only the time, but the emotion I invest.

This past fall, she and my children suffered periods of anger and elation that sometimes lasted for hours. I'm so intense during some games, my wife says she doesn't even like to be in the same room with me. Once, my little girl asked if I was mad at her after failed attempts to get my attention during a game. Does all this seem a little excessive? Maybe.

I mentioned a sermon by pastor Thabiti Anyabwile in a blog last week about priorities in the new year. I remember another timely message from Thabiti around this time of year encouraging us to "make it a discipline to ask our friends to tell us where our life appears excessive." In a list of possible areas of excessiveness, he includes getting "too excited about football games." He ends with this point of application. "Let us sit down with one another and explore whether or not these (areas of excessiveness) are indications of inverted priorities where God is concerned."

That's good advice heading into the NFL playoffs. But I believe I, with the help of my wife and kids, have already "explored" it.

My dad once told me that learning to manage your expectations of others (and others' expectations of you) is what makes life, well, manageable. I've found, however, that I have expectations about life that don't seem unreasonable; they're just not God's plans.

For instance, I expected to marry and start a family right out of college (I didn't marry until I was 27). I expected to be able to stay home with any kids we had (hasn't happened and likely won't). I expected to bear a lot of children (we miscarried multiple times before I was able to carry a pregnancy to term — and then had complications post-delivery that prevented further pregnancies).

None of these expectations were particularly wrong, but they haven't been what God has had in store for me. And, honestly, that's been disappointing for me. I've learned to throw out certain expectations and go with whatever God has in store for me, but I find I still carry certain expectations about life around. Which is why I find the story of Jesus' birth and early years comforting.

I always imagined Mary was patient and easy-going and trusting about the whole giving-birth-to-the-Messiah thing. Personally, I'm a planner, and I consider every contingency when going into a new stage of life. I never felt like I related to Mary. But this year during one of our Advent readings, I realized that Mary's first response to the news from the angel was "How?" That is the question of a planner.

I've spent the past few days wondering how things were for Mary, particularly if she were a planner. I've thought about her worry about being pregnant as an unmarried woman (punishable by stoning to death), her preparations for a birth with the midwife (only to find out she and Joseph would travel to Bethlehem around her due date), her frustration about not having any accomodations when she was in labor (because if there had been an available midwife in Bethlehem, you know she would have had Mary give birth in her home instead of a stable). Did she feel that God had forgotten her, giving her the job of birthing His son but failing to provide a proper place to do so? Was she frustrated that the hours following the birth brought a visit from a group of children (since shepherd responsibilities were often given to the youngest child in the family) when she probably just wanted to get some sleep?

Even Joseph had expectations to manage. After escaping with Mary and Jesus to Egypt and waiting out Herod's death, he planned to move back to Israel. Matthew 2:22-23 says, "But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth" (emphasis mine). What plans had he had for his new family that were unrealized? What expectations did he have for his family and his life that were thwarted by the new king?

Managing expectations and dealing with the disappointment of unmet expectations is something I'll spend my whole life doing — in my marriage, with extended family relationships, at work, in church. I pray that I have the courage and faith to follow God's path wherever it leads, especially when things don't work out the way I plan.

It was Thanksgiving 1996 and my parents' kitchen sink was plugged. Someone had filled the disposal with too many potato peelings and salad greens in the flurry of cooking activity and now, the sink was stopped up. Even the toilet plunger was no match for the clog. (I know, you're NEVER supposed to use that tool in the kitchen. But they were desperate.) Undaunted, the cooks forged ahead. Besides, it was time to drain the boiling potatoes. I don't remember who grabbed the pot, but it was hot. And whoever was holding it, couldn't. So they dropped it in the same place any thinking person would. The sink.

Trouble is the sink was full of clog-water that had also recently seen the business end of a toilet plunger. Near chaos ensued. Those were the tubers that were to be the mashed potatoes. Can you imagine a Thanksgiving feast without mashed potatoes? Neither could we.

Then, in that overcrowded, overheated kitchen, Steve whispered something in my ear. And I heard it. "I love you," he said. In the midst of all the shouting and bustling, he said it. For the first time. It was so chaotic I wondered if maybe I'd misunderstood. But the look in his eyes confirmed it. He loved me. And apparently, my lots-of-activity-and-very-loud family (have you seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Substitute Syrian for Greek and you get the idea.)

We never did manage to resuscitate the mashed potatoes that year. Our feast proceeded without them. But in their place, I had something eminently more valuable. The assurance that if Steve loved me in that moment, enough to own it for the very first time, I knew he was serious. He knew what loving me would include. And he said it anyway. I'll be forever thankful that he did.

When you hear that term, what comes to mind?

A couple of days ago I was flipping through some old copies of my grad school alumni magazine. They featured current and former students who'd done well, who had gone on to write books, make waves in government, take on pastorates, receive teaching awards, produce prize-winning films, head up inner city missions, and so on.

And that was just the women.

The message is that "successful women," those whom we should honor for their leadership skills, are those who influence people on a large scale. The more people affected by the alumna, the more successful.

But what about those women who went on to influence a small group of people, and more deeply? What about those women who, with master's degrees in hand, chose to forgo acclaim and take on the humble responsibility of being mere mothers? Who exchanged the temporal significance of a sterile board room for the eternal significance of the family room?

It's enough that my alumni magazine promotes women pastors, a vocation with no biblical precedence. But by remaining silent about the influential role of full-time mother, they imply that such women may not be counted among the "successful."

I know it's a cliche, but perhaps it is so because it's so true: In their last moments, women will likely not regret having spent so few hours working for The Man. They'll regret not having spent as much time as they could with the ones they love. In the case of married women, that's likely to include their children.

It's fine to recognize the success of women outside the home. Let's also recognize the too-overlooked success of those who, as the saying goes, rock the cradle.

Has the economic crisis given you pause about how you steward time and money? Has it given you a new appreciation for what you have that has (to your surprise) replaced the desire for more? Russell D. Moore hopes so. Because love of money is what he believes is "one of the roots of the familial crisis all around us."

In his Touchstone article "Love, Sex & Mammon," Dr. Moore hopes the economic crisis will cause the church to reconsider her priorities. He writes,

Too many of our churches, too many of us, have made peace with the sexual revolution and the familial chaos left in its wake precisely because we made peace, long before, with the love of money. We wish to live with the same standard of living as the culture around us (there is no sin in that), but we are willing to get there by any means necessary.

These "means" include Christians driving their teenage daughters to the nearest city to get an abortion so they can have a "normal" life, pastors preaching against the sin of homosexuality but ignoring divorce for fear of losing members and their tithes, and the way we blather on about marital communication but never consider whether day care is good for children. Regarding this last means, Dr. Moore concludes,

It's because pastors know that couples would reply that they could never afford to live on the provision of the husband alone. And they're almost always right -- if living means living in neighborhoods in which they now live with the technologies they now have. Why do we never ask whether it might be better to live in a one-bedroom apartment or a trailer park than to outsource the rearing of one's children? It's because the American way of life seems so normal to us that such things do not even seem to be options at all.

Nobody knows what's going to happen with the economy. And I don't know of anyone who hopes we'll go into a depression so the church will "turn away from momentary satisfaction." But economic adjustments can be healthy when combined with a dose of self-examination. It has certainly changed my perspective. Has it affected yours?

Right now, I feel like the the newlyweddiest of them all! I have been married for 16 days, 21 hours, 11 minutes....

Before we were married, my husband, Kevin, would give his coworkers the daily countdown: "37 days!" "14 days!" "47 hours!" They always thought he was doing it for me -- you know the "involved and supportive fiancé" bit. But the delightful part was, he didn't. He counted down because he was genuinely excited about marrying me. Nothing inspires confidence in a girl like that kind of enthusiasm.

Kevin's countdown, and his coworkers' reaction to it, made me wonder about something. Why does our culture expect some things, like getting married, to be mundane to men? It seems Kevin was out of the norm in being giddy about our nuptials. And yet his excitement for this new phase of life reaped many benefits: A secure and adoring bride-to-be. A testimony to others about the beauty of marriage. A hopeful and happy start to married life.

Knowing my new husband, I imagine when we are expecting our first child, Kevin's coworkers will be subjected to a similar countdown. And that's refreshing, in my opinion. Of all people, God's people should be excited about things like marriage and children. Things He ordained and purposed for good and satisfaction in our lives. Those are things deserving of a countdown!

I have now been married for 16 days, 21 hours, 33 minutes...