Bad Mom

Today I had the thought, Perhaps this was a mistake... three children when I only have two arms, two hands, two adults... . Common thought, I know. I've found that it actually occurs earlier and earlier with subsequent babies. I didn't question my soundness of my decision until after Izak was born. I remember wondering what I'd done when I had a wailing newborn daughter and sobbing son locked in their car seats in the minivan... and I clearly remember panicky moment early on during Levi's pregnancy that centered around the lack of good judgment I'd used in bringing a third upon myself and the family! But each time I rest in the fact that these are God's children, not mine, and order eventually comes.

When Izak was a newborn, I remember the parents who rolled their eyes at me and said, "You ain't seen nothin' until you have ___ (insert numbers greater than one) kids to deal with!" Though insensitive and invalidating, they had a point. Two is nothing like one, and three is two on an exponential graph! I'm busy every second, though breastfeeding every two hours may not look like busy-ness. There were a few times today when everyone was crying, and at least two of the three were hanging on my pants simultaneously, while I held the baby. (Which baby? you might ask.) There have been times I've played too many videos and not read enough books. There have been times when I haven't changed the dirty diaper quickly enough and someone's gotten diaper rash. I think the easy (and extremely unhealthy) thing to think is, I must be a bad mom. Good moms wouldn't have these problems. The reality is that there are hard moments. Even when there's only one child, and especially when there's more than one. But that kind of thinking does nothing for either Mom or family. So you cowboy up, suffer through; you cry a little, you pray a lot. And things get better.
Bad moms don't do that.