This post is part of a weekly column featured on my Substack. To get these straight to your email inbox, subscribe to my Substack here! If you really love what you read, you can become a paid subscriber on Substack to gain access to exclusive articles and help support this very busy, very tired mom. You can also receive email updates by subscribing directly to this blog. Thank you for your support!
Happy Easter!! This day continues to mean more and more to me the older I get, especially as I’ve become a mother. My day started at 4:00am yesterday because #twins, and by 6:00am I was eating breakfast with one hand and rocking a baby with the other. At first, I was humming random, made-up tunes, but eventually, I landed on a song that I barely remembered the words to. Somewhere deep in my subconscious, I had remembered a song that the Primary kids had sung for an Easter service years and years ago. I looked up the words so that I could sing the actual song to my daughter, and the chorus goes like this:
“Jesus is a God of miracles, nothing is at all impossible to Him. But I know this, of all His miracles, the most incredible must be the miracle that rescued me.”
As I sung the words very out-of-tune while spooning chocolate oatmeal into my mouth, hoping it didn’t land on Emersyn, I suddenly found myself crying. The idea that we have a God to whom nothing is impossible is just amazing. I had one of those weeks where kind of everything in my life felt impossible, so this song popping into my mind was like a reminder from Him that because of Him, the opposite is true. As the famous verse goes, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:3)
The farther I get in my motherhood journey, the more I understand and appreciate that God will meet you wherever you are at. I struggle these days to find uninterrupted time for meaningful scripture study, I frequently forget to say actual prayers out loud, and I often realize upon leaving church that I can’t really recall anything that was said, because I spent so much time taking care of my kids. But God knows my heart and sees my efforts, and that’s how even at 6:00am while I’m eating a bowl of oatmeal and singing to my daughter, I can feel the spirit. And I’m so thankful for that. Because I know when our pew is finally quiet and kid-free again, I will be so, so sad.
In other news, I survived my first week of residency! I wrote last week about how a part of me was nervous to go back into work and leave my babies, despite also wanting to work and further my career.
Well, by the time I made it to lunch break of my first day, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was exactly where I was meant to be! Only a few hours into the new job and I was loving it. There is, of course, a lot I don’t know. Most of my law school training is at the appellate level, but my residency is currently prepping for trial. I had to ask the law clerk what “voire dire” meant… I’m sure I’ll laugh about it one day, but when he answered, “Jury selection?…” as if it was the most obvious answer, I felt pretty dumb. My friend, trying to make me feel better, said, “I don’t know why they have to use Latin terms for everything!” to which I said, “No, I actually know Latin, I studied it for seven years! That phrase cannot be Latin!” Sure enough, it’s French.
Week #9 Favorites
- Reese’s Easter eggs. Need I say more? They’re perfection.
- Luke Combs’s new album. My mom is a huge country fan, so I grew up listening to a lot of it. Because of that, every time I hear country music it gives me a very specific type of nostalgia, and in a way, is comforting. My husband is also a huge Luke Combs fan, so he’s been listening to this new album nonstop. I finally gave it a whirl and I have to say… it’s pretty good. Lots of the songs give 90s-country vibes (my fav, thanks to my mom) while still being original. And his voice is just so good! My current favorite songs from the album are, “Miss You Here,” “Alcohol of Fame,” and “The Way I Am.”
- These ballet flats. I am normally not one to recommend anything that’s $120, because, well, I’m broke. But hear me out. I brought one (1) pair of these flats to Europe in 2019 and walked everywhere in them, and they were legit more comfortable than my tennis shoes that I brought. I’ll buy one pair and it lasts me for YEARS, they hold up so, so well. Plus, they’re simple and versatile and go with everything. I have one black pair and one nude pair, and I wear them to church, work, school, and just everyday life. I typically replace them every few years, because I wear them almost daily, but they are phenomenal. As a creature of habit, I won’t even entertain buying other flats. Why fix what ain’t broken?
Week #9 Highlights
- My parents put on an Easter egg hunt for the kids. My dad went all. out. hiding eggs around their house, and the kids had a blast! They had been looking forward to this for weeks, and it definitely lived up to the hype. The first year my parents did this, they hid one “golden egg” for each kid. Nothing was different about it, except they made it seem special and like a Very Big Deal. This year, all three of the kids decided to make it a competition of who could find their golden egg first. My husband and I couldn’t help but laugh at how sometimes the best traditions are formed on accident. And in case anyone was wondering, Thomas was the Golden Egg Champion for the second year in a row! The stakes are now even higher for 2027.
- I slept several 4-5 hours stretches at night!! I have since learned that I should stop doing this until my milk supply regulates closer to 3 months postpartum… but it was nice while it lasted! I’ve been so tired this week that I’ve been falling asleep the second my head hits the pillow before 8pm, so clearly the extra zzzs were needed. This week, in order to try and increase my supply a bit and keep up with the twins’ demand, I’m taking an extreme, opposite approach — sleeping on the couch every night with my phone across the room with MULTIPLE alarms set, so that I have to get up… ugh. But anything to not have to spend $800/month on formula!
- I was able to tie my dog to the stroller and take me, her, and the twins for a walk. Ginger has handled adjusting to life with the twins like a champ, but I’d be lying if I said her days were exactly the same. It’s been much harder to get out for actual walks, not just potty breaks, so I figured I’d try taking her with me when I go on my walks with the twins. It was ambitious, but it paid off. She did surprisingly amazing, and all four of us got some much needed time outside. I’m looking forward to lots more walks like this in the future as the weather warms up!
Self-Care Tip of the Week: Forgive Yourself
I talked last week about the important of forgiving others, but this week, I needed to practice forgiving myself.
Our first grade from winter semester came back. After barely passing fall semester (ok, maybe slightly better than that, but “Cs get degrees” sums up fall), I had really wanted to do better this semester. I studied way more than I did last semester, and overall felt like I put in more effort. But… I gave birth to twins just two or three weeks before finals, and I had a hard time bouncing straight back to school after that.
I brought my constitutional law readings to the hospital and jumped back into readings just days postpartum. I returned to class via Zoom less than a week later. I kept my textbooks and laptop by my nightstand and did schoolwork during all of the middle-of-the-night pumping sessions. I really did try. But when I sat down to take a final, and the room was so, so quiet… and it began to hit me that I hadn’t slept more than three hours straight in weeks… I struggled to get coherent thoughts down on a page. I felt like I forgot everything I had learned, and my brain was elsewhere.
All that to say, the one grade I got back so far isn’t that great. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care, but then I let it eat me up for days. Finally, at the end of the week it dawned on me that even if I feel like I let myself down, I need to practice what I preach and forgive myself, too. And this goes for everything. If I have days or even weeks where I feel like I’m not the wife or mother I want to be, rather than berating myself for it, the best thing to do is to forgive myself, commit to tryingto do better, and move on.
Thanks y’all for being here! Until next week!
<3, Megan
Step by Step Parenting 