Hardly

We've got it so easy, in so many ways. I do know this, and am ever grateful. But sometimes, it's just hard.

For example:

It's hard to be 22 months old, to know exactly what you want, to have the burgeoning ability to verbalize your wants and needs... and to have your mother incorrectly and persistently assume that you're asking for a second helping of lunch when you are so clearly trying to discuss your fascination with dump trucks.

It's hard to get a head start on world domination when at every turn, you are rebuked for ripping toys (toys that, it should be noted, are just as equally yours) from your sister's hands. Surely the Donald never had to put up with such nonsense.

It's hard to retain your perspective, sanity, humor and hearing after a full day of mothering someone whose initial response to any altercation, misunderstanding, misappropriation or petty frustration is to scream at such a high pitch and consistent vibration that she regularly trips the glass break alarm.

It's hard to stay on your best behavior and follow someone else's rules when, after five straight hours of doing the same, every fiber of your being commands you to run down the long school hallway in a crazy zig-zag, throwing papers into the air and sharing your loudest and most realistic monkey impersonation with all passers-by.

It's hard to be 36 years old but feel like an eight-year-old with your nose pressed against the window, waiting in vain for a visit from your daddy, because he promised he'd come.

It's hard to tie up the loose ends of a mentally and emotionally taxing workday with one eye on the ticking clock, then beat your way through a haze of red tail-lights and stop-lights to your casa de crazy, where the inhabitants greet you with pent-up energy and demands, and give you stink-eye when you ask for a moment of privacy in the loo.

It's hard to get ten preschoolers to don their soccer jerseys and smile simultaneously for a photographic souvenir of their first-ever soccer team, when all they want to do is dash across the room and tinker with every one of the super-cool video games that are blinking and beckoning them from the arcade.

It's hard to drag three tired, underfed and overstimulated children from said arcade, buckle them into car seats against their will, take them home and fling them into their respective beds amid howls of protest.

Ten seconds later, when they are snoozing happily and peacefully, it's really, really hard to fight the urge to tiptoe into their rooms and pepper their sweet, sleepy cheeks with kisses and tears of mommy love, guilt, love, hope, love and more love.

P.S. It's not even remotely easy to be voted Favorite Family Photographer by a majority of mommies across the Metroplex, but Jen has done it. Bravo!