How Kids Wreck Your Life (And You Won't Even Care)
After we were married, we waited for 5 years to have kids. Five blissful years of not waking up in the middle of the night to see a creepy child staring at us; 5 years of not explaining loudly in public bathrooms that, no, I am not pooping; 5 years of well, I don’t really remember what we did but I feel like I was well-rested.
Of course it was also 5 years without realizing the sweetness of little warm bodies curled up next to ours and 5 years of not knowing those lovely dimples or sticky hugs. But that’s not what this post is about.
This post is about how kids wreck your life (and you won’t even care.)
1. You realize how annoying you were as a child. Nothing is quite as shocking as that moment when your weirdo child is walking around with underpants on their head and you have a flashback to doing the exact same thing as an 8-year-old.
2. You will never get to eat another chicken leg. And you don’t care because your littlest hasn’t eaten anything but one bite of a granola bar in 3 days and you want them to live to see their 4th birthday.
3. Your important plans are only one sore throat away from being canceled. But only important plans like, an anniversary date to see your favorite musician on a beautiful summer night. Just those plans. Kids never get sick when you need to go to the gynecologist.
4. You constantly question the universe and especially its decision to allow your genetic material being passed onto to someone who once blew their nose and a noodle came out.
5. You see how well you deal with the stress of having irrational conversations for 10 hours straight and it’s not good. It’s like a child-sized version of a hostage situation where you have to function amidst a constant barrage of questions like, “Why can’t we drink water from the toilet?” and, “Will the brains leak out of my head when I have a bloody nose?” and, “Where do the burps go?”
6. Their idea of a good time usually involves water and dirt and your house will never be clean again. Oh, and they love finding your favorite stuff and dumping it down drains.
7. You become enlightened to what a jerk you can be. I have been enlightened to the fact that I am a huge control-freak jerk when my kids don’t go to sleep when I think they should. It’s never pretty and I’m working on it.
8. You question humanity and its ability to produce things like “Calliou” and jumpy castles that smell like urine.
9. You now hate dinner because there is always a lot crying and standing on chairs.
10. But then there’s that moment when you realize all the stuff you thought was important is not.
That’s the silver lining. The dimples and sticky hugs and the laughing and constant feeling of wanting to have a dance party makes all that other stuff worth every minute.
