Child Abuse

The kind my kids dole out to me on a daily basis... I have never encountered anything so physically demanding as parenting two small children. Even totally discounting what pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding do to you it is a tough gig. I have had my eyes and faced scratched, multiple times, by those razor sharp little nails. I have been kicked and smacked every imaginable place. And the head butts... oh my goodness my children have hard heads. It never seems to faze them in the least which I don't understand. I will be on the floor seeing stars after getting a thrashing head to the nose and they just go right on like they didn't even notice.

I think the most challenging part though is the baby wrangling. Holding a wildly flailing child still while I desperately try to put on clothes or a diaper really takes it out of me. And on a good day I get to repeat this two dozen times. With my son it is still just a flip and crawl maneuver. But when he wants to roll over it takes every big of strength I can muster to keep him from doing so. I don't know how that kid got so strong. (Yes, I've tried giving him a toy to hold. He gladly takes it, then flips over to look at it.) With my daughter she just gets up and runs off. Her favorite it to get on our bed and jump up and down going "Look at me mommy! Look at me!" She knows I can't reach her on the other side of the bed. So I'll have to go around and by that time she's gone out of reach again. Sigh. Then there's carrying them around. That is a whole different breed of wrangling. Peanut really isn't into being carried. He'll tolerate it for a few minutes but then he starts pushing off with his arms and legs and occasionally just throwing his head forward toward the floor with no warning trying to get down. I often wonder how it is I don't have bodybuilder arms by now as much lifting and carrying as I do. How many activity points do I get for hauling a two year old out of Target mid-tantrum?