Overcoming "failure"

I'm going to be very honest: going from one child to two has been very difficult for me. VERY difficult. Ellie turned 6 weeks yesterday and I am still hormonal, emotional, and drained. I'm not tired in the sleeping sense because she is doing well with that now and I'm only up once a night for about a half hour. It is more the drained in an everyone-needs-something-from-me-I'm-only-one-person-when-do-I-get-me-time-why-is-there-still-laundry-in-the-hamper-will-my-house-ever-be-clean-again feeling. Seriously, my house has not been as clean as it used to be since we brought Ellie home from the hospital. It bothers me to no end yet I can't find the extra energy to clean it either.
Anyways, mothering two has been a challenge so far. I expected it to be hard and had tried to prepare myself for it, but just as no one can prepare a woman for childbirth they also can't prepare you for the challenges of parenting. You have to experience them yourself. So a couple weeks ago, right before we left for all our traveling, I had a huge breakdown. I was sobbing in the shower, which is usually where I go when I want to have a good cry...partly because it is the only place I can actually be alone for more than 20 seconds if I lock the door (yes, Tim was home watching the kids at the time.) The moment that led up to this was finding a fairly large mistake in our checkbook. A payment that I thought was being deducted at the end of the month was taken out at the beginning. Since there was not money for that purpose set in there, it ended up causing an overdraft and the four expected payments that went through still went through, but landed us with overdraft fees.
After finding this out I headed for the shower where I sobbed and cried out to God to just give me a break already. I basically wrestled with my emotions until the water ran cold and I stepped out to find Tim and the kids greeting me in the doorway.
"You cry, Mama?" Noah asked and all I could do was nod. "Oh, all better now, Mama?" I shook my head deciding to be honest with my son. "You go back to bed, Mama," he suggested. Usually when he is crying it is due to being crabby which is due to lack of sleep so we suggest to him that he can either go back to bed or stop whining/crying. Apparently the tables turned.
As Tim grabbed me into a hug and asked me what was wrong, it clicked in my head what I was actually struggling with. I told him I was a failure and couldn't do anything right. I had really wanted a natural childbirth and got the epidural. The epidural then gave me a spinal headache which left me on bedrest for a week which meant I couldn't even take care of my newborn except to nurse her. Then she turned out to have the dairy allergy which led to me trying to give up dairy to continue nursing but I couldn't follow through with that and put her on soy. While all this was going on I still was trying to figure out how to balance a newborn and a toddler and felt like I was failing horribly at how much attention I could give Noah.
"You are NOT a failure," Tim repeated over and over and over. "You are a good mom and those things were beyond your control."
In all my weariness of having a newborn and adjusting to this new lifestyle with two children I had let satan attack me in my weak moments. As he whispered in my ear, "You are a failure" I believed him. Multiple times he whispered it and every time I let myself fall prey to the lie.
The truth is that I can never be supermom. My house may not be as clean as I would like for the next eighteen or more years. I may always have a tender spot in my back from all the needle pokes it encountered. I probably will never be able to give both kids equal amounts of attention. I need to be ok with that and realize that there are things that are not expected of me to be a good mom. What does matter is that my kids are loved. They are fed and clean and provided for. They go to bed with bedtime stories and kisses and prayers, being reminded at the end of the day how special they are to us. They have a mom and dad who, even in their worst marriage moments, realize it's more important to work it out than quit and that they are totally committed to each other for life. They are in a household where they are being taught about Jesus and how He died for our sins so that we may live with Him in Heaven one day.
I am not a failure.
I am NOT a failure.
YOU are not a failure either.