Well, we survived today.
The toddler woke up screaming around 11:30 last night, and after calming down was too restless to go back to sleep. After flopping around for half an hour with him, I took him and Baby #2 into the living room for some Daniel Tiger therapy so my husband could sleep.
Did the little guy sleep? Nope. Four hours of Daniel Tiger later, I took him back to bed and thankfully this time he did go to sleep.
The rest of the weary morning included trudging out onto the rainy deck with him to rescue Toot-Toot (aka Thomas the Train) who had battery-powered himself off the deck and onto the slippery staircase. (This little incident occurred while I was inside getting puked on by Baby #2.)
So now the toddler is soaked and the baby is puke-stained, and I am both. Toddler gets marched off to the bath where I discover he’s also stinky. He gets wiped up and put into the bath where he can splash and play with his little boy parts to his heart’s content. Meanwhile, Baby #2 is on the bathroom floor getting changed…oh hey guess who else is majorly stinky…and the little guy decides to take advantage of the situation and hops out of the tub to go streaking (quite literally) down the hallway.
Somehow, by divine intervention I’m sure, we all ended up in clean, dry clothes again and even managed a long nap in the late afternoon.
Now I’m rocking the baby to sleep while listening for the silence indicating my husband has gotten the toddler to bed, too.
They say having a toddler is like having a blender without a lid. I believe it. My living room is covered in toddler doings and un-doings, from scattered wooden train track pieces to swiftly-pulled Kleenex. There’s a folded newborn diaper waiting to be discarded and hey look…there’s even a potato under my couch.
And I am exhausted.
These days all I’m living on is granola bars and reheated coffee and the grace of God. Jesus talked about His life being poured out like a drink offering; I think I get poured out more like a plastic cup of milk, but I know that this is my role in this temporary chapter of life.
And I’m okay with that. The days of poop and puke and leaking nursing pads won’t last forever, and God still pours out grace upon grace with new mercies every morning.
I have to claim these promises daily or the potatoes under the couch will steal my joy, and that’s not the mommy I want to be.
“For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”
– John 1:16 (ESV)“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘Therefore I hope in Him!'”
– Lamentations 3:22-24 (NKJV)
jess leigh hanna 