To my friends who have yet to have babies. . .

Awhile back, a friend and I were having an email conversation, and she mentioned she was sometimes visited by a feeling of envy regarding my life.  She herself is "in that torn stage of wanting kids but not wanting the loss of self-time that comes with it - or not capable of imagining myself coping with it!"  So naturally, I had to describe to her my fantastic coping skills and all of the things she could be wildly jealous about in her spare time.  We decided my rant was blog-worthy, so here you go:

I tried to email this earlier, but one kid was telling me about how cleaning her room hurts her feelings and the other was ramming me with a doll stroller.  Still jealous?  Let me help!  Here is what your “curl up in bed” time would look like: you drag yourself through the morning, getting all persons up, changed, and fed, then settle them to some ingenious, brain-building activity.  Exhausted already, you sink happily onto the couch with tea, heating pad, and remote. . .oh wait, where’s the remote?  You get up to go hunt for it, and finally find it, logically located inside the crockpot in the kitchen cupboard.  You’re pretty happy with yourself for remembering to check there, which of course is due to finding part of a banana there last week.  Remote in hand, you head back to the couch to realize you have left your tea unattended on the coffee table and, you guessed it, little John-John tried to use the tea to rehydrate his raisins.  You are actually a little relieved because none of the tea got on couch.  Tea mess is dealt with, but then you hear the other child yelling from the bathroom that she doesn't have any more wipes. (This child is not allowed to use toilet paper because she has yet to ascertain the meaning of the phrase “not enough surface area.”)  That’s when you decide you really must start a load of laundry.  So you do.  And as you’re dumping the basket into the washer, you see something wiz past that seems out of place. . .but someone starts shrieking down the hall and you forget as you go to separate your offspring, both of whom are thoroughly displeased with the way you resolve the situation.  .  . later as you go to move the wash to the dryer, you realize what you saw. . .SOMEONE has used a disposable diaper on the baby and accidentally tossed it in with the wash.  Not. Good.  Oh, here comes lunch time!!  :)

I love my life and I never ever wish it back the way it was pre-kids, but I do sometimes wish that they’d go stay with their grandparents. For a week.