Another post about how tired I am

Sleep deprivation. Is seriously. Seriously. Difficult.
And I'm supposed to FUNCTION as a reasonable human being. A parent. A MOTHER.
But my kids. Won't. Let. Me. Sleep.

My mom says this won't last forever. In fact, it will only be a FEW. MORE. YEARS.

But, oh, how am I ever going to make it?

The past few nights, Em, who has been teething and teething and has nothing to show for it, has not slept. That is, not unless she is on top of me. On top of my chest. She is 20 pounds. And very squirmy. With very sharp fingernails that I keep trying to cut but they're not long enough to cut. They're just SHARP. And my face is looking a bit like I got into it with Edward Scissorhands.

This is not the kind of sleeping atmosphere that I find most restful.

Also, the barf bug entered our house earlier in the week. Why, oh WHY, does the barf bug always arrive at THREE O'CLOCK in the MORNING??!!

And my son is having growing pains. Again, why do these pains become unbearable in the middle of the night? Why can't they hit, oh, say, at quiet time? After lunch. When we're all resting, and I can just snuggle up next to him and rub his muscley little calves and enjoy it.

And now it's hot. And I forgot to open the bedroom window during the madness that is the bedtime routine. And the house is old. And the windows are squeaky. And all the children are actually sleeping at this very moment and there is no way in hell that I am going to risk opening a squeaky window and waking up one of them.

And that will be my luck. Tonight they'll sleep. But it's so damn hot in here that I won't.

But I'm going to try. So goodnight, as they say. Here's hoping...

Why Am I Not Sleeping?

Maybe if I still had a favorite stuffed animal (like B's good friend Theo, here) I would have the discipline to turn off the computer and go to sleep.

"So You Had a Third."

This statement came to me at B's b'day party, and I can't stop thinking about it. A mom of two, whom I don't know well, just walked right up and said it. What all those other folks seem to be thinking, although with more of a question mark/exclamation mark sound. 

"Yes," I said. "We did." 

Turns out she wants more children. I've only had one other person ask me straight out what it's like to have three. The rest of the time I feel like I'm the anomaly in the town. Even though I can give you plenty of examples of moms of three if you ask, thank you very much. But hey, you asked, so here's what I'll tell you about wanting more kids. About going from having two kids to having three. 

You should consider how much control you like to have in your life. If control is something you need (and perhaps something you already feel as if you are lacking) another kid is probably going to throw you a teensy bit off balance.

Did you say you like to have sex? Well, enjoy it while you're in the "trying" phase, because after that kid comes, it may well be impossible to do the deed. Between the complete exhaustion (see below) and the fact that there are now THREE children who may need you at any point during the day AND night, well, sex just isn't that practical. 

Did I mention the total exhaustion? It is exponentially greater with the second kid, right? With the third you are off the charts. You may find yourself stumbling through the day wondering where you put those children. Not to worry, though, they will let you know with their neverending demands.

Don't worry about three more years of diapers. Really. If this is your only concern, go for it. The poop is so the easy part.

Chaos. Very similar to sleep, although inverted. The more kids, the more chaos. Off the charts. Know this.

Hugs. There is always someone to hug. (And someone who needs one...)

Noise. You will spend much of your time trying to regulate noise. Around nap times for the littlest one. And when no one is sleeping, someone will always be talking. Usually you. 

Your body. OK, folks, here it is. My body made it through two pregnancies, two births and two sessions of breastfeeding (28 months total). And then came the third pregnancy. I have not bounced back. And, it is pretty clear, I'm not going to. If I want that body back, I'm going to have to work for it. 

Longing. Do you long for another child? I did. None of the above had anything to do with it. I just knew I wanted one. I knew immediately after I had my second that I wanted one. I worried that maybe I was going to interrupt the zen of two parents and two kids (who are very sweet together when they're buddies and getting along). I worried that I was being selfish. That I was tempting fate to ask for another healthy child. But I knew in my heart and my gut that if I didn't have another child I would regret it and I would wonder What If for a long, long, long time. 

Em has completed our family. She was meant to be. And, ultimately, all that other stuff doesn't matter. I am lucky because I have a partner who is truly a co-parent. Who is understanding and supportive and funny. Who loves the children and didn't balk when I wanted three. Who knew, in fact, that I wanted a third without me telling him. It's hard sometimes (like, oh, say, EVERY DAY). But I know that we are all in this together. And that's the most important thing you need to know. It has to be the right decision for the whole family. Not just for you. I was lucky.

Fair weather parenting

The sun has been shining. Oh, glorious warm days. And with the rising temperatures have gone the windows. Storms up. Screens down. All of a sudden, the goings on inside my house are public. We live in a neighborhood that is close to ideal. Stop for a minute. Picture "neighborhood." Yup. That's us. Cute little town. Sidewalks. Diner and hardware store within walking distance. Fenced-in yards that kids cut through to get home from school. On a warm spring night like this one I can hear not only the familiar dogs but people grilling in the apartments across the street, the next door neighbors' screen door slam and the clanking of dishes in their kitchen and the unhappy toddler on the other side of us. And, I'm sure everyone can hear me. When I yell. At my kids. 

I can't believe that I yell at my kids. I hate that I yell at my kids. I know that my (nearly nonexistent) patience level is directly correlated to my (dangerously lack of) sleep. And no sleep and no patience leads to a short temper. My poor children. 

On the other hand. What is it about children's wiring that makes it seemingly impossible for them to respond to a parent THE FIRST TIME. 

I feel now, with the windows up and fresh air billowing into my cozy, cluttered house, kind of like the way I feel when I am in the grocery store. With all. three. kids. The entire time I am weaving in and out of the aisles, trying to remember everything on the list, trying to compare prices and get out coupons that aren't yet expired, I am TALKING. Non-stop. Telling someone not to touch something. Or not to open something. Or not to put something in the cart. Or to follow me. Watch out for the other carts. I talk the entire time. Out of necessity. I talk ALL DAY. Out of necessity. And most of it is instructive. And most of that seems negative. Don't. Don't. Don't. I am conscious of this. And I do praise my kids a lot. But then there are the times when nothing works. I'm exhausted. At the end of my rope. With my buttons practically glowing "PUSH ME" to the kids. And sometimes I have to talk in a LOUD voice. 

I try to warn the kids. "Please go brush your teeth now." 

"But, Mom."

"B. It's time to brush your teeth." 

Silence. Then, "Can I just..."

"I will ask you nicely one more time. Please put down the Matchbox cars and brush your teeth. Do you need me to help you with the toothpaste?"

"But, Mom. Can't I just do it in the morning."

"I don't want to have to raise my voice."

"But I brushed them this morning."

"BRUSH. YOUR. TEETH."

Cry. Stomp. Yell. ("This isn't FAIR!") Skulk to the bathroom sink. Brush teeth. 

I hate this. I hate that I do it. I hate that it works. But now that the windows have been open the past few days, I find I am trying even harder to give them warnings. To find other ways to motivate them. I am trying to be a better parent because I am hearing myself loudly through other people's ears. And sometimes I don't like what I'm hearing. 

I used to be such an introvert. Happy to sit alone in my tidy apartment reading all afternoon. Or writing. (About things other than my children.) Now, I feel like a bully half the time. I guess I didn't realize that becoming a mother is like a self appointment to CEO. Uh, I never really wanted to run a business, thank you very much. But that's what I do. I give orders. And I expect them to be obeyed (to a certain extent, anyway). And to do it, I have to talk. But I don't have to yell. And I'm trying to remember that more. 

Oh, and after the teeth are brushed, what happens? 

Wipe face. Seek out mom. Give mom hug.

 

These children and their immense abilities to forgive. To allow their actions to speak volumes more than the millions of words that leave my mouth every day. They understand so much. Just what they are doing. And just how much they can get from it. And on the days when I don't have to hurry them somewhere. On the days that they can have the freedom of setting their own schedule. On the days that I awake in the morning feeling somewhat restored by a few winks, my vocal chords are much less in demand. And with the weather nicer and school winding to a close and Em sleeping a lee-tle better, there is hope for all of us. This business of family. In our house. Our yard. And the neighbors on all sides. Thank you, neighbors.

Let's be honest, people

The older I get, the more I appreciate honesty. Just tell me how you feel. Don't sugar-coat it. Don't beat around the bush. And don't tell someone else and hope s/he will tell me. I'm sure a direct correlation can be made between this wish for no-nonsense communication demands and the beat-down, tired-to-the-core daily existence that is motherhood. Folks, I just don't have the energy to figure out what you're trying to tell me. Just spit it out. OK, so I might be a little miffed. I might not like what you have to say. I might not respond. I might stomp away. I might fester. I might. But at least things will be out in the open. And I don't tend to hold grudges forever.

Back to work tomorrow, and I'm bringing Em for what will be one of her last times in the office. She is getting more demanding, is starting to squirm around a bit on her tummy and has gotten herself wedged under her porta-crib and my desk, and she is growing louder. The kid has lungs. She rarely cries loudly, but she does make herself known. I attribute this to the fact that she's the third, and the other two are LOUD. She has learned from them. Already. That, and she knows that if she wants to be heard above their din she's gotta go all out. So. The office that I work in is on the top floor of a four-story building, which also happens to have an open staircase. Sound travels in this building. But let me back up. 

Em is the third baby I have brought to work with me. And I know I am EXTREMELY lucky to have had the ability to have my babies with me at work. I have a supervisor who is generous and understanding and has gone out of her way to allow my babies in our shared office. And all of the other folks who work on my floor have been more than welcoming to my offspring. I am grateful to these colleagues for all of their smiles and baby talk. As I understand it now, there is no formal policy about bringing one's baby to my place of employment. I do know that I am not the only one with such an arrangement. I am one of the lucky ones whose job responsibilities and work environment and great people allow it to be possible. But still, I don't want to take things for granted. And I don't want to take advantage of this generosity. And on the days that the babies have been with me I always feel a teeny tiny rock in the pit of my stomach. A near-queasiness. A bit of a defensive gut. Even though I have received nothing but oohs and ahhs in the babies' presences, I always thought that somewhere someone might wonder what the deal is. And now, I have what I always suspected I might: a disgruntled employee in my midst. 

Someone in the building complained about my loud baby. She is loud. It's true. And I do try to close the door when she starts ramping it up. There have been a few times, though, that I haven't been quick enough. Her bellows have been heard throughout the floors below. It was bound to happen, I suppose. And I do understand that perhaps those baby sounds, ones not expected to be heard in a workplace, could come as a bit of a surprise. Could even be disruptive. I'm pretty reasonable. I really get it! But, alas, the complaint did not come directly to me. The complaint was made to the director of human resources. And then it trickled down the organizational chart until it got to my supervisor, who then had to talk to me. Now I feel like I've put her in an uncomfortable position. Isn't she the one who has encouraged me to bring these babies in? It shouldn't be a big deal, really. Em's days are numbered. She's about the same age the other two were when they stopped coming in anyway. But the more I think about this complaint, the more frustrated I become. I don't know any details at all. I don't know if someone had a hangover and the damn baby on the floor above was aggravating a headache. I don't know if an important meeting or phone call was interrupted by one of Em's occasional outbursts. I don't know if someone just doesn't like the idea that I bring my baby to work. I just don't know. And that is what really gets me. I'm being asked, my supervisor (with whom I get along very well, thank you) is being asked, to remedy the situation, and yet I don't even know what the problem is. I just wish said person would have walked up the stairs and come to me. At least then I would know the scoop. And I would be able to respond without being on the defensive. And I wouldn't feel so buried in a bureaucratic workplace. It just really gets me that this had to become so very complicated. And that I have been up nights worrying about it. And that I DO feel defensive. Like, my baby was on her way out anyway, so don't think it was you who bullied me to this quiet commute to work by myself. OK? 

And then, I wonder. I question myself. I go against my own demand for upfront-ness. Am I being unreasonable? Or, if I was confronted directly would I be as honest as I say I want everyone else to be? Do I really want a chance to respond to the complaint? My answers to these questions tend to change, depending on how much sleep I'm rolling in at the time. And that, my friends, is motherhood. At home. And in the workplace.

The (tired) backstory

Is there a mother out there who isn't tired? It's my day to post here (while Sarah watches Heroes), and I was all set to get into it. But I'm so TIRED I can barely breathe without effort. I was just snippy with my Sweetie, for no particular reason other than the fact that I'm SO TIRED. The baby finally went down, but who knows how long she'll sleep before she needs another slurp from me. I want to be utilizing my intellect and writing skills here, but really I'm just typing for the therapy of the sound of my too-long fingernails on the keys. 

Motherhood is just so damn draining. And I went to WORK today. J was doing the harder part—putting in his time in the trenches, home with the kiddoes. Well, two of them. Which is what I was going to write about in the first place. The fact that I have brought all three of my babies to work with me during the first few months of their lives. And now, baby number three is just about finished up with her early office months, and I will once again be separating my working (out of the home) self from my mommy self. And I have very mixed feelings about this. Like, I am looking forward to actually EXERCISING during lunch. Well, maybe. I guess I should take into account the fact that I will also have to PUMP three times each day, so maybe I actually won't get to take a lunch. Damn. I also won't be worrying about the noise level coming from my office, which apparently has been bothering someone in the building, because I had a complaint filed against me with HUMAN RESOURCES. I am in no state of mind to get into the details of this yet. I also won't be able to see Em's sweet face every minute of every day. And when I look in my rearview mirror on the long drive to and from work on those three days that I go in, I won't see her little round head turned to the side, nestled into her car seat and reflected back at me. And I won't be able to have a hug any time I damn well might want one.

I survived leaving the other two at home after their tenure doing the 9-4 gig. And I remember feeling, with B, my first, that I wasn't going to make it. That leaving him at home would be emotionally impossible for me. It wasn't, of course. We all made it. But that feeling of leaving my child. It just took over every part of me. And now, on the eve of B's FIFTH birthday, I can't believe he was such a tiny, tiny baby. That I ever had the courage to leave him in someone else's care. And I can't believe how much he believes in me. That I, the mother, somehow know what I am doing all of the time. Even when I know I am doing the wrong thing, he doesn't doubt it. This child of mine, who started out his life away from home napping under my desk now goes to school, has his own "gang" of friends and sometimes even plays on his own. I am proud of him. And utterly in awe of him. And I know I will get there with Em, too. But I do wish she could stay at work with me a little longer. Need ME for everything every moment of the day (and night). It doesn't make any sense, I am aware, that in one breath I am telling my oldest child that he doesn't need my help (putting on his shoes, finding his juice cup, straightening out the covers on his bed) and in another I am looking at Em and fervently hoping that she doesn't start crawling away from me just yet. I want to just watch her sleep for a while, knowing that only moments after I give in and turn out the light she will push up off of her tummy and start nursing the air before she can even squirm her way over here. But at least I made it this far. A somewhat coherent stream-of-fatigued-consciousness brain dump that maybe will allow me to sleep. Oh, sleep. How I miss you.

How many nights can I go without real sleep?

J is upstairs putting the big kids to bed. Em is lying on the couch beside me, playing. I am as tired as I ever have been. Too tired to be writing this post with any hope of making a point. The past four or five nights (I have lost track) have been very long and not very full of sleep. As a result, I have slowed down. Internally. It is as if I can feel my heart beating slower. As if my blood is thicker. And my brain. My brain is just barely functioning at all. It is, in fact, on auto pilot. Doing just enough to get by. And I'm not the only one. This morning J looked for his coffee mug in the refrigerator instead of the dishwasher. Yesterday he came a handful of Barbasol away from applying shaving cream to his hair. Does this level of fatigue have a clinical term, I wonder? Is it like being a doctor on call for 72 hours straight? Or a soldier on the front lines? Does it matter? 

The fact is, I have been sleep deprived since B was born, five years ago next week. Some years, months, weeks have been worse than others. But I haven't had more than a handful of solid nights of sleep since his birth. And though I openly admit that I have a tendency to exaggerate, this is no exaggeration. Here's the rest of that fact: There's no immediate end in sight. Parenthood is, as they say, 24/7. When B is up coughing, one of us has be up with him. When the baby can't breathe out of her nose to nurse, I have to wake up enough not just to pull her over to me in bed but to suck out the goo in her nose. When S has a bad dream or falls out of bed, she wants her daddy to "come suggle with me." And these moments, though exhausting, come at a time of night when will isn't a factor. As parents, we do what we need to. Especially at night. There's no time or energy or daylight to consider an alternative. And, there's the FEAR that one awake child will wake another one (or, now, two). There is an urgency to nighttime parenting that is unlike any scenario in daytime, no matter how late we are to preschool or the pediatrician's. No matter if someone is napping and the other two are playing emergency vehicles. (Daytime sleep is a luxury, even for the baby.) At night, instincts take over without any help from intellect. Just the way sleep should be. Just the way sleeping used to be. Auto pilot.

Why is today ANY different?

I've been awake for 12 minutes and discovered that I entirely missed the Easter morning Egg Hunt and Jelly Bean search. The boys have apparently searched and searched again and had their fun. And now it's done. Jamis is downloading skeeball on to my iPhone, oh joy. My mother and her partner, D, are reading the paper. Dan is on his computer and when I talk to him he doesn't even look away to face me - seems the sun is shining right in his eyes when he does, so why bother? Max is watching Tom & Jerry, but at least he is still his animated self. MA-MA, he screams from the next room. For no reason. He's just prone to belt out my name at random - a kid thing, right? Usually you would expect that they need or want something from you, but no, not always.

14 minutes now that I've been awake and not one Happy Birthday from the crowd. Ethan gets a free pass, as he's sleeping, and not yet one. And I suppose Max should get a free pass as well, but I'm sure he could be coaxed to say SOMETHING. I'm not bitter. It really doesn't matter one little bit. And I guess that's the point. It's my birthday. I'm thirty-one today, and it just doesn't matter - not one little bit.

We quasi-celebrated last night with dinner at my mom's and a birthday cake that was wolfed down before Jamis had a special outing with the grandparents. They left and Dan and I cleaned up the dishes and the house and dealt with the coughing, whining, tossing and turning infant. Oh wait, I dealt with the coughing, whining, tossing and turning infant. I ran up and down the stairs 22 times getting cough medicine and bottles and water and diapers and such. After finally falling asleep on the couch in front of Working Girl, I tripped up the stairs and slept in the room with him. Dan was lucky or unlucky enough to have to sleep with Max in another room because Max woke at 11:30 for WHO KNOWS WHAT? Apparently he was awake watching tv in bed with Dan until 2:30. I'm not sure which scenario is worse, mine or his, but I'm pretty sure either BOTH of NONE of us should be whining about it.

I can tell it's going to be a trying day. Sleepy, sugared-up kids. I just coughed so hard my upper back seized up and now I'm sitting here with my head at a VERY SPECIFIC angle, pointed slightly downward, and my shoulders so tense that it would take a REALLY GOOD MASSEUSE talk them down from he edge of forever being ROCK hard. And maybe, in fact, that is what I need. A good massage for my birthday.

What is there to celebrate about me today? I can think of 50 things to celebrate in general: my kids, my husband, my house, our health, and so on. When I think about it in a more personal way I find it's still all related to others. I think I am a good mom. My kids are happy. I know that it gets rough, and I get rough, but if we are generalizing, I am a good mom. Dammit, I'm better than good. It's a natural part of who I am, for better or for worse. No, for better. For sure. I'm a good partner in a great marriage. It could always be better, and I could always be more but....(oh these disclaimers are becoming a nuisance).

When I think about my own greatness aside from what I mean to, and what I do for, the people I love, it is difficult to really distinguish. Are we ever really anything so personal anyway? I don't read enough anymore. I don't take care of my body and my mind and my soul the way that I know that I can, and the way I know that I should, to nurture an inner peace.

This mom business takes you completely outside of yourself at all times, and yet asks you to constantly question yourself and your values and your morals while acting out the role.

I'm 31. This isn't what I imagined my life to be. I never really imagined anything actually. I was just living it and it happened. My days are filled with so many small tasks and so many many words like stop and please and no and FINE! Although I left my twenties last year I didn't feel as though I had entered my thirties. I guess it was a chosen year of LIMBO. A feeling of youth has washed away as I accept that this IS my life. I AM in my thirties. I LOVE my boys. I CAN make changes to find my spirit, my peace, within all this. But to remember that with kids, with THREE kids, everything takes really nine times as long as you would like, well, that's important! So maybe when I'm writing my 41st birthday post I'll have something tremendous to say. I won't be digging in the trenches anymore, or something like that. And maybe it won't be Easter and the first thing on everyone's mind won't be jelly beans and chocolate eggs. I've been awake for something like 56 minutes. No Happy Birthdays yet.

The only thing different about today is that we woke up in my mother's house.

The Easter Bunny has come and has since been forgotten.

And now I have to establish and live with the CANDY ALLOWANCE ORDINANCE until I accidentally throw the rest of the sweets OUT with the rotten vegetables.

Profundity

I have come to the realization that I don't have anything really profound to say. Life, in itself, is profound; my thoughts about living it are more dirt and grit, mundane, absolute in their necessity.

My achievement today is making dinner out of nothing much. I haven't been to the grocery store for anything more than the bare necessities in nearly a month. A month. I can't even get to the grocery store. I can't remember to brush my teeth on a Sunday Morning, or change the laundry, or pick up a friend's kid at school. There's so much I don't do and feel guilty about not doing and feel stressed out about having to do --- that I thought I should make a list of all the things I did today (or yesterday, as it were, because I never actually got around to writing this last night... didn't do that either).


(Amendment: didn't finish the post on Monday either. The irony is uncanny. It's now Thursday and this is all about Sunday....)

I woke up at 5:45 am.

fed the baby.
fed the toddler.
got the juice, wiped the noses, changed the diapers.

balanced the checking account, and the business account, and the savings account
(hmmph, that didn't take long).

took stock of the pile of debt that never dissolves.
started a preliminary budget for April (scary).


checked my email,
researched 5ks,
10ks
and Half-Marathons for
this summer,
as well as
Duathlons and
Triathlons
(for those truly inspired weekends).

I put the baby down for a nap.

Now it's 9 am.
You could say the first few hours were spent on my butt, except for the repositioning of the baby, the kitchen runs for juice and bottles and snacks and anything to appease the early morning Sunday chirps of the children.

9:30
I make eggs and bacon and toast for the whole gang. Dan is now up. He slept in. Isn't he lucky? Then I do the dishes. Soak the egg pan (what a mess).

10:30 I take a peek at Ethan's room. We painted Saturday. Horizontal stripes on one wall. Varying colors. But because we are so lucky there was something wrong with the red paint. It was thick and goopy and globbed all over the wall and now we have even more work to clean it up and sand it down and paint over it. Ugh.

Try to sand it and it's still wet. Bigger mess to fix. Great, another thing added to my head, almost as exhausting as weeding the flowerbeds.

We install new Ikea lights and shelves next to both bunks in the boys' room. With a level and a drill and a lot of whining from a very tired 2 year old, it's completed - but the shelves keep popping off the screws when bumped or nudged a little too hard. Great, have to fix that too.

It's Thursday now and pretty much I can't remember the rest of that day. The whole idea of the accomplishments I had made seemed so important at the time because often I feel so powerless over the great amount of work that IS the mothering of three, the housekeeping, the patience-stretching, sanity-keeping world that I've learned to breath in.

But I can pretty much gather that the rest of it went like this:

Lunch:made
Dishes:done again
Naptime:conquered
Toys:gathered
Laundry:done
Dinner:made (out of NOTHING, remember, that was the whole inspiration for this mess)
and again:dishes:done
Toys:re-gathered
Baths:swum in
Bedtime:FINALLY

I remember two things specifically-

1. that we installed the giant mirror over my dresser so I don't have to hover in the teeny bathroom with bright blue toothpaste staring back at me from the 1970s sink, smelling that diaper smell, feeling soggy from all the showertime accumulated in one morning.

and

2. that Dan finally re-tackled the job of connecting the automatic water and ice thingie in the fridge door to the pipe. It worked again! Yay! And then it leaked. All over the floor and into the basement and we had to shut water off to the whole house. Of course. NOTHING is easy enough to be completed on the first try. Ethan's paint, the boys' lights and shelves, the damn water thingie.

And what's my point and purpose?
I got some stuff done. Should feel good. But there's always more stuff. And the stuff that was done ultimately created more stuff to be done. So why do anything again? Oh yeah, because it's Spring and I'm reborn. Yes yes, I'm remembering now. But it's hard to write from Sunday's perspective when I was only just reborn about Spring yesterday while on my iPhone and didn't post that Spring thing till today, Thursday, which is when I am trying to relive the moments of Sunday.

Okay, see, why try saying profound things when a brain with chatter like this just breaks it all to mush anyway. And life is really just one inexplicable realm we walk in.

Ugh.

Wine with dinner makes me philosophical

At the end of two days at the office I am so glad to be home and to know that I don't have to get up and out tomorrow. I can be with my family.

At the end of a day with my kids  I am so overcome with exasperation that I can't believe I looked forward to such a day.

I try to be grateful for every moment with my children. And of course I am, ultimately. But as the moments are happening, so often filled with whining, talking back, protests, refusals, I find myself wondering how, and why, I got myself into this situation. 

For as long as I can remember I wanted to have children. I wanted to identify myself as a mother. When I met my now-partner, I started dreaming of our children before our courtship had turned to commitment. And now we have this family that I love and cherish and take in daily with love and wonder and an almost equal amount of disbelief. How am I to be trusted to raise these three children to be fulfilled, happy, healthy, productive adults? How can I be selfless enough? Honest enough? Tough enough? And why is it so difficult? 

There is no way to adequately prepare for parenthood. For the sleep deprivation. The pure joy of seeing your infant smile. The pride of watching as your preschooler writes his name for the first time. The gut-wrenching fear when the unexplained fever won't go away. The pure range of emotions felt in the course of one day are more exhausting than the training I used to do in my days as an athlete. A day at work can be intellectually exhausting. But the work can be left at the office. A day at home is emotionally exhausting and sometimes continues into the next day without a break if one of the kids wakes in the night. And now, with an infant, we are starting all over again. I am tired. So tired. But I am letting this baby be a baby. I am not hurrying her toward her developmental milestones. I know they will come. And soon. And as I watch her grow, I am also watching my son learn how to be a kid. How to communicate his feelings without whining. How he is proud of his name-writing. And my now-middle child. Until now my baby, all of a sudden she is three-and-a-half and I am so amazed at her nurturing impulses and so sad that her speech is more and more without lisps and misspoken words. She is soon to be a big kid. And that's the irony. These days with little ones are so long sometimes. But the weeks, and months, and years go by so quickly. Every parent says the same thing. Because it is true. The best parenting advice I've ever received is, "Enjoy them." Simple. And true. The children are worth the exasperation, of course. Because the rewards are beyond measurement.

Which doesn't mean that sometimes I don't look forward to tomorrow—at the office.