Yes, I refer to it as "number twosies"

I think I hit a new low yesterday when I went number twosies with a child strapped to me in a Baby Bjorn because he was sleeping (finally!) and I dared not disturb him.

(I, however, was deeply disturbed by the experience)

It's amazing what one will do when one is left alone with two 3-month-olds day after day after day. It's like some sort of twisted Survivor, where instead of being on an island you're trapped in the house, and the challenges involve epic dirty diapers and diabetic cats and blind binkey searches, and the immunity idol is really just an ice-cold Magic Hat #9 that you would literally kill someone to obtain.

I'm not proud to admit that I have during one or more occasions encouraged Ike to suck his thumb because if I had to retrieve that G-D binkie one more time, I was going to lose my mind. I know I will sorely regret this when I see the bill for his braces 13 years for now, but at the time, it always seems like a good (if not desperate) solution to an ongoing problem.

I've also watched more junk TV than I care to admit. Hey, I feed babies for an hour at a time, every four hours, around the clock. It's not only boring, but if I haven't had enough sleep, it's coma-inducing. If I'm not being entertained, I'll often doze off. Or daydream about all the cool things I USED to be able to do before I had kids. Either way - very dangerous. So I watch Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Say Yes To The Dress and My Fair Wedding to keep from dropping babies or falling into a pit of despair. I also watch a healthy amount of Celebrity Ghost Stories, but I'm not going to put that show in the same categories as the others, because Celebrity Ghost Stories rocks. Of course, it also has me jumping at every noise and imagining that my bathroom is inhabited by a "shadow person," but I'd rather be hallucinating evil things in my house than watching them on TV while they bicker and drive around in fancy cars and kiss their famous basketball-playing husbands while stroking their perfect hair. *shudder*

I've also, unfortunately, broken the cardinal rule of parenting by just. letting. them. cry. Sometimes, (and this is a rare occasion) I just don't have it in me to deal with them. Every once in a while, after an endless night of getting up every 20 minutes to deal with this or that baby crisis, I just can't deal. (and BTW, these kids are about as dramatic as the Kardashians about what constitutes a "crisis," and for the record, being slightly hungry or scuffing your Manolo Blahniks does not.)
Maybe I'm a shitty parent.
Maybe I'm a hypocrite working so hard to have children and then not being able to manage them 100% of the time.
I dunno (and at this point in my life, I don't really care).
But there have been times where they been left in their cribs to whimper while I closed the door to my bedroom and went to my happy place for 5 minutes or so.

Hopefully, they won't be scarred for life. From the neglect OR being witness to my bodily functions. And personally, I AM scarred for life from having these kids. But isn't that part of being a parent? Earning your scars? Surviving the low points? Being able to say "when they were babies..." while rolling your eyes to the heavens because you were there and you survived to tell the tale?

Of course, there are high points as well. And boy, they are SO WORTH the struggles. But only a parent would deprive themselves of sleep and sign up for endless diaper duty in exchange for a smile, no matter how miraculous that smile may be.

So this post isn't going to end on a funny note. Because while there are a lot of emotions that go into parenting, humor is vastly overshadowed by the simultaneous pain and pleasure of raising your kids.

I have no regrets. And I have more joy in my life than I ever dared to dream of. But I also have poopy diapers and screaming fits and all the day-to-day realities of child rearing. So you'll have to excuse me if I sometimes slip and lament my position instead of enjoy it. Because while having children is the best thing I've ever done...it's also, BY FAR, the hardest.

And sometimes, you just need a Magic Hat #9 at the end of the day, if you're going to survive the night.