It’s the snuffle and cough season in our home. Hallie snuffles like an pig on the scent of truffles while Heath coughs like an excited seal and this goes on all night long. Then we all change beds. Sometimes twice. Finally we all get up ungodly early and the kids spend the rest of the day crying, whining, pooing, peeing, vomiting and/or wiping their snotty noses on whichever one of us is closest. Then we make dinner. That we have so far avoided food poisoning is amazing.
My acting teachers always said that you shouldn’t go into acting unless you really wanted to act. It was just too hard otherwise. This is so much truer of parenting, because even when you really want to have kids, there are times when you don’t want to have kids. And once they’re here there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
Now don’t get me wrong, there is an upside. Very little repulses me anymore. A handful of anything that comes out of my kids is just not a big deal. I wipe their butts with abandon and flick away their snot with aplomb. As long as whatever I’m dealing with is not actually in my food, I’m good. And as for the slight baby vomit smell I may occasionally emit, you can all just deal with it. I’m busy raising future generations.
Finally, as someone who splits his week between work and kids, let me just say that work is a trip to Tuscany by comparison. The old stereotype I grew up with of the tired husband coming home at the end of the day to be fed and coddled by his ever so grateful family? Scam! Scam! Total scam! The dude’s been chatting about golf around the water cooler all day while his wife has been home with a squalling infant and a pantsless, runny-nosed four year old whose response to her every request is an imperious “Why?”.
So as autumn turns to winter and the clouds begin to build in the west, think of me from time to time, a man who is blessed with exactly what he asked for and occasionally just has to complain about it.
Playing in the City with Trains 
Isn’t it a good thing that we aren’t given a trial period to see if we want kids? Or that no one really warns us about it really is? I wouldn’t trade mine for the world (most days) but you are right going to work is like a vacation. And who isn’t usually glad to come home from vacation? At least for a night. I know that there is nothing that grosses me out anymore. Recently, I was in the operating room with a cousin while she was having a c-section, the Dr. was worried I’d pass out because of all the blood, until I told him I have 6 kids. Then he knew I could handle it all. Be glad there is only two, it takes a lot longer to pass it around five times.