“Wow! It's true the Lord gives us what we need to conquer even the craziest challenges.
In the last hour Josiah threw up on Baby Caleb and all over the kitchen. What I would call the "proper cleaning products to clean it up" went missing. An indoor pool was created on our bathroom floor from the boys pouring water from the tub to the floor. Matthew peed before I put a diaper on him wetting the bed and floor in their room, I was just barely able to save their big expensive stuffed lion from the spray. and now they are all bathed in clean clothes the floors are clean, the boys are eating kix, and baby caleb is sleeping soundly in the crib. Wheew!”
That is what I posted to Facebook yesterday morning. I didn’t even try to fit it all into a Tweet! Josiah, my three year old who NEVER vomits, did so right on his four month old baby brother! Then he turned around and continued. Filling the entire kitchen floor. He started crying. He didn’t even know how to react himself.
Three out of four of us were covered. Somehow Matthew had escaped the spray, but his feet were getting dangerously close.
For a second I froze. I was home alone with a vomiting 3 year old, a curious 1.5 year old, and a baby covered with said vomit. Surely this situation was over my head. But I was only frozen for a second.
I told Josiah not to move. Grabbed a wipie with one hand cleaning out the baby’s mouth and face while making sure Matthew didn’t get any closer with the other hand. I sent Matthew to the living room and undressed Josiah right there. Took him to the bathroom and ran some water in the bathtub to clean him off. Praying the whole time that Matthew hadn’t made his way back to the kitchen and the mess.
I made my way back to the kitchen and undressed baby Caleb. Took him to the bathroom and quickly bathed him with Josiah. Which, by the way, Josiah loved. He’d never had the baby in the bathtub with him. Then I took the baby to dry off and dress, laid him in the crib, ran to the kitchen to get a clean pacifier, and ran back to give it to him. From there I checked on Josiah still in the tub and Matthew, now standing in the bathroom watching Josiah in the tub.
I ran to the kitchen to assess the situation, searched high and low for the dust pan. I called my husband to see if he knew where it was, which he didn’t. Checked on the boys again. Found some cardstock in the office. Pulled the trash bin into the kitchen and used the cardstock to scoop the mess into the trash. Checked on everyone again and cleaned the floors.
Then the yelling started. And the laughing. It was coming from the bathroom and I knew it meant they were getting into a fun kind of trouble. I walk in to find the bathroom flooded and Josiah throwing cups full of water on Matthew and Matthew throwing pieces of a waffle into the tub at Josiah.
So I undressed Matthew, put him in the tub and bathed them both. Checked on Caleb who was peacefully sleeping through the whole thing, snapped the picture above and pulled the boys out one at a time to dry and dress them. Which of course is when the peeing incident occurred.
I went out to the living room, put some cartoons on and told them to stay there. Then I started the washer, rinsed all our clothes and threw everything in to wash. Finally I went back to the bathroom and soaked up the water and soggy waffle bits.
Then I sat down on the couch sighed and posted the picture to Facebook. Exhausted yet?
What really got to me, out of the whole ordeal was that moment, that instant when I doubted myself. That second that I froze and thought that surly I wouldn’t get out of this one unscathed. I was sure I just didn’t have the capacity to handle a situation like that.
But I forgot that it’s the LORD who sustains me. That HE won’t let me fall. That through HIM I am more than a conqueror. It doesn’t matter that I’m not capable, because what I lack HE provides. What it all comes down to is that it’s not about me, my abilities, or my weaknesses. It’s about HIM. Life in general is about HIM! I had lost my focus for a second. I was focused on myself.
As a stay at home mom it can be easy to become self sufficient. To think we have it all covered. That anything our babies need we can provide. But if we live with that mentality we will become overwhelmed when we realize we aren’t enough. We set ourselves up for failure and frustration. Why? Because we aren’t enough. We will never be enough. They need someone bigger and better than Mommy. They need GOD!
He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
John 1:2-4
Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.
Psalms 55:22
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:37
