the Lord God is my strength

today seemed like a hard day. well, it was a hard day. i'm 35 weeks pregnant, and i have a 14 month old and a 28 month old, so some might think all days are hard days. in some ways, they are. just because things are blessings does not mean that they are also easy.

i've been a lot more achy this pregnancy, and i don't know if i've ever had as much insomnia with it. i'm on a schedule. i can't go to sleep until late, i wake for an hour and a half to two hours each night for no reason, and then levi is up by 6:30, so i don't get much rest.

breakfast didn't go incredibly smoothly. some days it does. today it did not. eventually i found things both boys would eat and they ate. sometimes pregnant with 2 under 2 means you don't give your kids organic, home made, free-range, grass-fed, spinach pop tarts for breakfast - instead, they just eat regular strawberry pop tarts you buy at the store. (it can't possibly stunt their growth any more than genetics already will.)

the boys were up earlier than they should have been, so they needed naps by 10:30 and 11. there were various cues, including eye rubbing and shrieking. (i wasn't the one shrieking.) unfortunately, there was only a 30-minute nap overlap, and when you have to eat and clean up lunch mess from two little boys (SO many crumbs, and what is that goo?), that leaves no time to rest. granted, they sometimes give me beautiful two-hour overlaps where i can nap, rest, make a grocery list, clean, cook, and even do a craft (pick two, not all). not today.

levi was very tired from his one-hour nap and grumpy from his final first-year molar coming in. he required approximately 40 minutes total of baby wrestling (he was very angry and crying for most of this) interspersed with more attempts at getting him to nap. these were unsuccessful. he eventually calmed down and played with the ipad. i'll take it.

then sam got up after a lovely two-hour nap (jealous). then there were still, *still* somehow more than two hours until justin got up. he is a day sleeper and a night worker. thankfully he can sleep through shrieking.

about an hour of this time was spent deciding on and eating snacks. they are young, indecisive, and they eat slowly, and they sometimes eat a lot (which they did). i used the time they were confined to high chairs to clean and get laundry going.

by the time justin got up, there was still much to do, including feeding ourselves, folding laundry, general everyday stuff, etc.

both boys had dirty diapers at the same time (sam refuses, absolutely refuses, to potty train), and thankfully justin changed them.

by that time i was really tired, feeling hormonal and emotionally raw, and just overwhelmed (the night was nowhere near over). i had tears in my eyes, my head in my hands, and my belly on my lap (it's big). i had the urge to get on my knees and pray, but i wasn't sure i could get up from there without a crane.

leave it to levi to sit on his coloring book and then NEED it, desperately, and try to pull it out from under himself on the floor. so as you can imagine, i ended up in the floor anyway, helped him with the book, and laid my head in the seat of the rocking chair.

i cried and prayed. it wasn't so much a prayer of words but an outpouring of emotion - my exhaustion, my desire to be a good and patient mom, the training of and demands of the boys, an argument (or two) justin and i had, and this long, giant, achy pregnancy.

before i could finish, there was poop somewhere it shouldn't have been and i needed to deal with that, but you get the point.

and i know, God got the point too. of course. i realized that i wasn't worried about the wording of my prayer, about using the right words, the right structure, the right vocabulary. there are some moments of some days where you just can't.

i can't imagine having one of my babies come to me, hurting from a tough day, and sending them away to dry their tears and come up with a more poetic way of expressing what was wrong. no, no, a flawed, sinful mama like myself would still take that little head on her shoulder and hold and comfort that upset baby, even if he was blubbering incoherently.

God heard His child, me, and comforted, strengthened me to finish the day.

and my day, it didn't really get better. it was tough to the end, and i still can't sleep. God never promises to bring me an easy evening after a hard day. sometimes He does anyway, but we get the graces that we need, and we also get the refinement that we need. even the refinements themselves are graces, though they don't usually feel like it.

i know God gave me this day to help me remember not to parent or generally live life in my own strength. i tend to try. a lot. and fail. today was a reminder that God is where our strength comes from - thankfully, too, because if all i have is a waddling, tired, third-trimester-pregnant mother of two toddlers to rely on, i don't have much to rely on at all. (unless i wanted crazy. i have a whole lot of crazy on days like today.)

"the Lord God is my strength" - habbakuk 3:19

"cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." - 1 peter 5:7