Fooled myself...again

i realized something last night that I've realized a million times but never written down.  parenting is about fooling yourself.  that's how you get through it.  but it's also about punishment...it sneaks up on you.  every day you GO GO GO until bedtime (8:00 in this house) when your precious little one(s) finally go to sleep.  then you flop on the couch exhausted only to realize all the other things you have to do now - usually for us the first thing we do at this point is finally eat dinner.  then we clean up and put things away.  that's when you start fooling yourself...you think oh now i can catch up on email, read a magazine, have some wine, do some face book, talk to my husband/wife, stay up late.  stay up late!  yeah why not finish the end of that too long crappy show that goes til 11?  why not!  why not make that phone call?  sure why not?  why not stay up and get a little romantic?  yeah why not?

why not?!  because that crazy baby is going to wake up 1,287 times tonight and you're gonna feel like crap!  you're going to be leaning over that crib rubbing her back until you get a cramp in your arm, hoping and praying that she's asleep...slowly remove the hand...nope keep going!  she's awake!  keep going!...rub rub rub...zzzzzzzz...repeat repeat repeat...all the while cursing the fact that you stayed up late.  again.  oh and then she'll wake up for the day while it's still dark outside.  

will you ever learn???  

probably not :)