Parenting is Not For The Faint of Heart

When you're a parent, there are good days. There are days when everything goes right. Days when you manage to get everything done around the house, make a trip to the playground, have productive and educational play time with your kid, and make a healthy and satisfying dinner before tucking your little one sweetly into bed.

And then there are bad days. There are days when the clutter and mess seems to multiply under your very feet. Days when nothing will stop your child from whining other than watching the same episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse over and over and over again. Days when all you eat are chips, leftover Christmas candy and animal crackers.

And then there are days that are not for the faint of heart. Parenting takes guts, people. And a stomach of steel, so when your kid throws up what seems like oceans of pureed banana on you, you don't add to the pile yourself.

Digestion isn't the only thing that has to be steely. As Argus Filch once said, "you've got to have your wits about you!" Because if you lose it, who is going to hold your boy down while a nurse comes at him with a scary saw looking thing, assuring you repeatedly that it will just cut the cast off but you're pretty sure it its going to take his leg with it? Or when you walk into his room in the morning and the only thing worse than the smell is the fact that there's poo all over the baby, the crib and the wall?

I have long said that the true way to stop teen pregnancy is to give young girls a serious reality check. Strap a 30 pound lead bag to their belly in the middle of the summer. Make their ankles swell up. Let them experience throwing up in a completely public place. Give them too much information about stitches and where the doctor puts them after delivery. And all that's before they even bring the bundle of joy home.

Parenting is rough. But it is worth every extra pound, every stitch, every load of smelly laundry. Know why? Because those good days really exist. The kind of days I wish I could put in a bottle. The days when books are read, food goes down easy, the sun shines and the giggles are plentiful. The kind of days that find me dancing with my Little Man to soft music before I rock him to sleep. The days when he opens his eyes for just a minute when I lay him in his crib, looks and me and smiles so big that he's still smiling when he goes to sleep.

I'm thankful for every day, even the bad ones, because the ones that challenge my heart--be it by a baby tumble or tantrum--makes it a little bigger so I can enjoy the good days even more.