Today was just another terrible yet wonderful day in the land of stay-at-home-momdom.  So many days are this way.   There are the parts where my infant is screaming so intensely that I’m quite sure that he might shoot a rocket out of his forehead while I try my darnedest to change my toddlers’ poop laden diaper before sitting down to nurse for the next 30 minutes (plenty of time for blistering diaper rash to set in).  It sounds easy, but it starts to look impossible when my toddler thinks it’s funny to kick me in the face as I attempt to wipe the poop off of her butt.  I give her my stern eyes and she has the gall to LAUGH when I scold her.  I’m on the brink of using my fire breathing dragon breath (because I don’t have time to take care of all my basic needs, like brushing my teeth) to scream in her face.  I’m so angry that a little fire might just come out and incinerate her eyebrows.

It all started out so nicely… I thought I had time to make scrambled eggs for breakfast- a rare treat these days.  However, in the midst of spit-up, screaming, and diaper changes I forgot that I had a pan of oil on stove.  That is until I smelled this horrid smoke coming from the kitchen.  I put the pan outside to fizzle out, took a deep breath and mustered up enough determination to make eggs again.  Lo and behold, I dropped those perfectly cooked eggs on the floor.  At that point, I didn’t care how dirty the tile was, we were eating those dang eggs.  The rest of the morning consisted of nursing a fussy infant non-stop while my daughter wined, “I need a new toy!” and “where we gonna go today mommy?” and “I wanna watch Sesame Street!” Unfortunately I had told her no more TV as punnishment for throwing her bowl of cottage cheese on the floor during lunch.

All I wanted to do was turn on Sesame Street to “medicate” her into quietness but I had to stick to my guns in order to keep her from walking all over me for the next 16 years.  Here’s how it usually goes: my 3 month old infant pins me down to nurse for much of the day while my 24 pound toddler practices her interrogation skills with hopes of getting me to admit that a third episode of Elmo really would be best for all of us. Before the day’s end there would be helpless infant tears and fierce toddler tantrums.  Our rug and my pants would be adorned with with pee, there would be a vomit smell lingering on my shoulder from regurgitated baby’s milk and spit-up in cracks and crevices of our furniture that are now going to be there until it is put to rest on the curb. Sitting in front of a computer doing data entry–a job I would have hated– suddenly sounds like a vacation.

Then there are the other parts of the day, the magical ones.  The moments where I find an unquantifiable amount of joy from my son’s adorable toothless smile.  Getting to be the one he shares his first chuckle with that caused a round of belly laughs to ensue.  The part where I am giggling with my daughter as she jumps around the living room to the tunes of Pandora’s Children’s Indie Rock station while dressed in her daily uniform of a bumble bee swim suit, striped leg warmers, and earmuffs in the middle of a Southern California winter.  A walk to Starbucks at 10 am on a sunny day that gave me the chance to watch my daughter drink her “coffee” (aka milk in a fancy cup) with pride and poise.  The chance to kiss my baby boy’s fuzzy head countless times.  The “oohs and ahhs” that I get from passers by as we walk through the neighborhood.  Hearing my little girl yell “I’m SUUUP-ER GROVER” as she runs down the sidewalk with her arms up in the air.  And the outfit that I got to adore her in all day long that was a culmination of a pink dress, pink hat, pink socks, and of course pink shoes and a bumblebee swim suit underneath it all.

My children make me feel like the richest, insane, angriest happy person in the whole world.  Who knew that I would one day agree wholeheartedly with the cliche phrase that motherhood is the hardest and best job one could ever have.