Last straws are funny things; they’re the tiny, last little thing that sends a person “over the edge”, “into conniptions”, “beyond the point of no return”, etc. It’s that one thing that normally would not have even registered on a person’s radar, but for one reason or another, because of so many other difficult and/or unforeseen incidences, the last straw can cause stately ladies to scream in exasperation and composed gentlemen to spit in frustration and kick the dirt. For me, that last straw landed on my pile at a most unforeseen and inopportune moment and came at me from a very unexpected source. It happened a week ago last Monday, and to fully appreciate the extent of this last straw, I need to give a little background:

We had spent the weekend away from home, leaving for our trip after Read got home from work on Friday, and driving the six hours to visit his parents; then turned around and drove the six hours back home on Sunday after church. Austin is a wonderful little traveler because he pretty much sleeps the whole time we’re in the car. This is great for the car ride, but it made putting him to bed a bit difficult once we got home because we (the parents) were about to drop, and he was ready to play all night after his long afternoon nap. He finally gave up around midnight, and Read and I gratefully collapsed into bed in anticipation of a good night’s rest. I had just settled into a sound sleep when Austin woke up starving. I took it all in stride as I gave him a bottle, promised myself that we would sleep in, and dragged myself back to bed, knowing that he would sleep late into the morning since he had been fed at 1:30. To my dismay, I was awakened at five that morning by my poor baby who had developed a terrible stuffy nose and cough at some point between that bottle at 1:30 and his cry of distress at five. Thus began my Monday that I had planned to sleep in and catch up on laundry.

I spent the day alternately sucking snot and nursing Austin who desperately needed to sleep, but woke up every time I put him down. I stayed patient and calm in the midst of the chaos and sickness. I disinfected and washed all I could to keep an epidemic from sweeping through the house. I was like a machine on a mission to keep my child comfortable and the rest of the household healthy. A big thank you to my mother who showed up around two that afternoon with a casserole for dinner and an offer to hold Austin while I took a much-needed nap. She was probably a big part of why I was still functioning when Read came home from work that evening.

Finally, at the end of that long day, after the casserole was consumed, the dishes were done, my child was breathing peacefully in his daddy’s arms, and our stuff was ready for the Tuesday workday, I innocently picked up a book on raising children and began thumbing through it looking for a specific piece of information. As I looked through the book, my eyes began to settle on lines of text on the page, giving guidance for schedules, feedings, napping, bathing, teaching our child to adapt to your life instead of you adapting to their whims. The words began jumping out at me as a reproach for all I was letting slide and missing in raising my child. I suddenly forgot the hours I had spent just that day keeping my son alive, sucking snot with every device in the house I could find to discover the most effective, holding him so he could sleep, feeding him, changing him, singing to him. In that instant, the straw dropped, and I became the worst mother of the century. I didn’t realize what had happened, however, and I tossed the book aside (I never did find what I was looking for in that stupid book of encouragement and help) and began grousing about all that still needed to be done. Suddenly I realized that my feeling of accomplishment for surviving the day had turned to one of inadequacy and defeat because I glanced through a book of suggestions that had worked for someone else raising their child.

My husband could easily be called “Mr. Encouragement” because he often knows the right thing to say at the right time. I told him of my frustrations, my feelings of inadequacy as a mother, my failure to perfectly follow the schedule lined out in this book of perfection because life kept getting in the way. He wisely listened, suggested I stop reading the stupid child rearing book for the evening, and reassured me that only I, as Austin’s mom, could have done the right thing in the right way for him that day.