I thought I would happily regale you with stories of the first four hours of my day.  Why?  Because misery loves company?  Or better yet, because if I don’t, how will you share in my glory of parenting?  Really, I am thinking of you!

First of all – it took another hour of forcing Katie to stay in her bed to get her to sleep last night.  And then she insisted on sleeping in panties – which have been something we have tried from time to time – but always failed at.  Sure enough, at midnight, she woke screaming and had wet her bed.  Twenty minutes of changing, cleaning, calming and loving and she was back asleep.

By that time, Sarah and Megan were up.  I covered Megan back up, rubbed her back and she fell back asleep.  And then I went and laid with Sarah until she fell asleep.  And I fell asleep too.  I woke at 1am and could not go back to sleep until 3am.  And then I was up at 7am.  So to say I am tired is a waste of space.

Surely my children would sense this and have mercy on me, right?  Especially since my husband was home this morning while we dealt with another heater issue.

But no.  Just in the first 4 hours, Katie pulled Sarah off of the bar stool and she smacked her head on the tile floor.  Sarah, who insisted she would not wet her pants, peed in her pants on my carpet.  In her attempt to get a Pull Up by herself – since I did not know she had wet her pants as I was doing the dishes – she fell, pulling my entire closet rod down on top of her and sending my clothes flying to all corners of my closet.  And hurting her leg.  Badly in her eyes…  clearly not in mine.  Megan tried to get on the potty and fell off, flipping the child step and landing on the inner edge with her chin.

In addition – because you know there is more – Katie threw a tantrum and kicked me in the face when I tried to calm her, therein causing me to put her in her room – where she trashed it.  Sarah continued to cry because of the closet incident and Megan decided she would join the fun just because it seemed the right thing to do.

And, at one point, I sat, in the middle of my floor, legs crossed, and cried the ugly cry.  The red eyes, runny nose, can’t catch my breath, painful to watch cry.  Not because I am unhappy or even feeling sorry for myself, but because when you add exhaustion, frustration, and just plain parenting together, it creates a cosmic universe than inevitably leads to the ugly cry.

And then I felt a tiny hand on my head.  And then another, and then a little girl crawled in my lap.  I heard “Shhh, Mommy, it’s ok.” and  “Mommy, I loooove you!” and “Mama, Mama,Mama.”

And I started to laugh.

Because when you add the ugly cry with the love and sweetness of children…  you get laughter.

And laughter makes it all worth it.