Something about pride and falling...

Today I had to have a little repenting moment....A baptism if you will. And I say "baptism" because there was a lot of water involved. This was no sprinkling, we're talking a dunking.

Anyway, before I get too carried away in my metaphors, let me just say that I've now been a mother of two by myself for almost two weeks. I've had one or two really bad days, and a bad moment or two pretty much every day ( have I mentioned that Tabitha does not like to be put down when she's awake?! Yeah. Not cool...if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears...she does not like the vibrating seat that Ransom so adored when he was her age...sigh). But all in all, we've made it unscathed. And I've even kept up a pretty basic routine. And so yesterday I was driving somewhere and I was looking at my clock thinking how I was going to be right on time to keep with my awesome schedule I'd created for myself, and I gave myself a major pat on the back...and then ( here comes the bad part) I started comparing myself to others. I thought about how totally awesome I was and that I was able to arrive to events on time and with two kids in tow, fully clothed, me looking ( sorta kinda) decent, and I thought, "man, I've got this parenting of two thing down pat!" 
  *side note: Lets not even get into the fact that, thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law and terrific friends I've hardly had to make a full meal by myself yet....also, my house...its not exactly what we'd call "clean"....but lets just forget that for the time being...

Then today, I was brought firmly down to earth when I decided to go to our library's storytime in a torrential down pour... As I was driving to the library in the pouring rain I realized that it was a baaad idea ( in fact, I had a hint that it was a bad idea when I was taking Ransom and Tabitha out to the car in stages...getting wetter and wetter as I went...), I started to visualize how we were going to get into the library and every scenario involved badness, yet my pride did not allow me to turn around...and sure enough, it was awful.

And by awful I mean, Tabitha in the stroller with a broken umbrella draped over her, an umbrella that became more and more broken with every new gust of wind, letting in more water....and then me trying to navigate said stroller with one hand while I held my heavy two year old and another umbrella in the other. Ransom kept slipping and the umbrella kept sliding and, well, it was horrible. 

THEN once safely inside the library I figured we were through the worst, but wrong again...Tabitha, who is normally napping during the next hour and a half, had a dirty diaper and woke up crying. So, I grabbed her up, and took her and Ransom into the bathroom in the hopes that I could quickly change her before storytime started....

Hey, have you noticed that there is a healthy echo in public bathrooms?!? Well, THERE IS... and imagine a screaming infant objecting to her diaper change...and now add in a two year old who is objecting to the infant-screams by screaming himself....Yeah. I can imagine that the people clear on the other side of the library were hearing us.

But, we finally wrapped up the diaper experience and headed into story time ( where all the moms looked at me with a mix of horror/disgust and pity. By this time story time had started but Tabitha had NOT stopped crying. And then there was Ransom who was excited about singing the Wheels on the Bus, but who didn't want his mommy to leave the room with his screaming sister...lets just say we were the center of attention yet again....

Ok, that's enough. I'm done with this awful story, but basically the bottom line is that I am NOT a perfect mother of two. I have a LOT to learn, and above all, I must remember that there is no perfect parent and I must extend not only myself but ALL mommies a ton of grace.