No Humility Without Humiliation--a re-post from 2008

[In celebration of four years of blogging this week, I am re-posting a few things from the earliest days of my blog.  This is one that remains crystal clear in my mind...]

There's nothing like being a mother to young children for opportunities to grow in humility. About fifteen minutes ago I found myself suddenly overwhelmed by what we might call "potty issues".

My 22 month-old comes into the office, where I sit hoping no one will discover my whereabouts and interrupt my perusal of favorite blogs. He isn't noisy or disruptive, he just sits. And stinks. So, finally I decide that I really must do something before he ends up with a leaking, stinking diaper. As I stand by the changing table taking off this toxic mess my five year-old reports, "Sebastian put a bunch of toilet paper in the toilet and now it's stopped up." He continues to fill me in on the details as I use my fourth or fifth baby wipe. "I'll get to it as soon as I can, Gabe", I tell him. Enter the three year-old: "I have to go pee in the potty." I cannot take him, so I scream to my nine year old daughter in the other room, "Una! Stop whatever your doing now and get Adrian on the toilet! Get the potty seat out of the bathroom and use the toilet in my room, the other is stopped up!" She dutifully gets the potty seat and the toddler and disappears into my room. The baby is clean. I spray some air freshener into the air. "I'm done, mama!" I hear from my room. I put the baby down and he follows me to check on Adrian. I have failed to remind Una to remind Adrian to put his little thing down between his legs, and now there is pee on him, pee on the potty seat, pee on the toilet seat and pee on the floor. Now I feel about ready to scream. I get Adrian off the toilet, clean him and say in a foreboding tone, "Go. Go out. Now." He leaves the room with the baby in tow, sensing the threat. He has no diaper and no shorts. Now I scream. No one comes running, as they are all familiar with the sound of mother losing it. I get the spray disinfectant and the paper towels and sit on the floor cleaning everything.

"Thank you, Lord", I finally say, "for helping me to learn humility. You know how much I need it."

Post Scriptum: In the middle of this post I had to respond to another call: Gabriel spilled half a glass of iced tea all over the kitchen floor...Deo Gratias.