This is parenting

More often than I would like to admit, I miss the days before Eli was born. I miss when Phil could meet me after work and we'd go see a Broadway show with cheap tickets I'd gotten through TDF. I miss taking long walks with Ellie to the dog park after dark. And perhaps more than anything I miss waking up when I decided I wanted to wake up, not because a baby was crying or a toddler was whining in my ear.

This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you that even though I miss these things, every time I look at my boy's sweet face or hear his delicious laughter or snuggle with his cuddly body it's all worth it. That everything before his birth was just a prelude. That my life now finally has meaning.

But I'm not going to tell you that. I mean, yes, I love looking at my boy's sweet face and hearing his delicious laughter and snuggling with his cuddly body. But that doesn't mean there isn't also a part of me — a secret, shameful, selfish part — that misses the time when my life was a little less magical but a lot less maddening.

Whenever I have these thoughts — usually when my ability to do something like get out the door of my own house is being held hostage by the emotional whims of my 3-year-old — I feel tremendously guilty. I know there are probably people who never have this problem, who are lucky enough to handle the whims of parenting with grace and good humor. And I know how many people wish they had this problem — I know, because I used to be one of them. I know I'm supposed to cherish every moment. I know it all goes so fast.

But I own these feelings — these flashes of resentment, these jolts of longing to be responsible for just myself and no one else — and I'm determined to be honest about them. Because when you admit your most secret, shameful, selfish feelings, those better angels of your nature rise up to seize you at the most unexpected times. Last night I got home late from a dinner with my besties with a belly full of cupcakes and cocktails, a night I could have had 5 or 10 or even 15 years ago (well, minus the cocktails). I tiptoed into Eli's room and there was my boy, all twisted up in his blanket with his feet sticking out at the bottom, his head wedged just below his Lightning McQueen pillow, his mouth slack against his blankie. I took the blanket and gingerly pulled it down over his bare feet, and all of a sudden there it was, the raw fierce love I almost didn't believe I was capable of.

Last week, I was at the playground with Eli when he suddenly announced he had to poop "right away!" Naturally, the bathrooms were locked. I happened to have a stroller with me, so I threw him in it and went flying down the block towards our house as Eli observed, "Mom, I never saw you run so fast!" Halfway there he casually said, "Mom, I just farted. I don't have to poop!"

Instead of trusting my gut, which says if your child announces he has to poop, believe him, I took him back to the playground, where five minutes later he hopped behind the fence, spreadeagled his legs next to a tree and fully exposed himself in front of a large audience of horrified grade-schoolers. "I have to poop," he explained.

I was embarrassed and sweaty and miserable. This is parenting, I thought.

A few nights later Phil decided that we should break Passover with not just the pizza I had been craving but with a full-on pizza party. He brought out funny hats and turned on the Disney Junior radio station. We jammed in our seats at the table in our funny hats and Eli beamed up at me as he munched on his pizza, his face incandescent with happiness.

This is parenting too.

On my new fave reality show, Bravo's There Goes the Motherhood, one of the moms had this to say about parenthood: "Parenthood is like the ocean. It's inviting to some, it's terrifying to others, and the minute you turn your back on it, it'll suck you right under."

But sometimes it's not such a bad thing to get sucked under. Because sometimes when you come back up, you learn how to float.