I LOVE being a parent. My kids are super awesome.
Jeremy is 4 months old! Yesterday he rolled over, from front to back, many times, with purpose (the first time I've ever seen him do it). He's starting to laugh at stuff. He sleeps through the night (mostly). He babbles like he has the world to tell me about! He's all kinds of adorable.
Scott is (very nearly) 21 months old! He is learning new words, finding new favorite things, starting to be helpful. He's fast and strong and full of play. He still laughs at everything. He's a great kid.
Ok, I think my kids are great, got it? Now I get to complain.
This morning Eric had to take his dad to the airport really early (after dawn, but the stupid sun makes it light way too early these days). So He got up at 5. I woke up with his alarm, realized the baby was still in bed with me (oops, fell asleep before I could put him back last night), and so I didn't want to move him. But he woke up too at 5:30am and... well, I've been up since then. I'm tired. I should really go have some coffee... yep, doing that, back in a bit (btw, it's now 8:00am and I haven't had coffee yet).
Ok, back, it's now 8:20 and I've acquired some coffee, had some office gossip time and ... where was I?
So I've been awake since somewhere in the neighborhood of 5am. I don't get enough sleep. Ever. Even if I try to, I don't. Even if I wear myself out, and somehow I magically get to sleep in (until 7:15!), I never catch up. This makes me less intelligent than I otherwise could be. I was chatting with someone women at my peditritian's office last week and one of them said that having kids makes women roughly 25 IQ points less intelligent during the infant and toddler years. It's pretty much directly from sleep deprivation. I am there. It's frustrating.
This morning I checked facebook while I was laying in bed before actually getting up at 6am. I saw pictures from one of my BFFs weekends. She was off on an amazing bachelorette party with one of her friends. I don't get to do things like that anymore. On the one hand, I wanted to have kids young so I'd have the energy to keep up with them. I also wanted my kids to really know my parents as grandparents. I wanted my parents to be able to be at my kids weddings. Hopefully that's been accomplished.
However, having kids when I did means that I've given up half of my 20's. I still have fun, don't get me wrong. I have a great circle of friends who often invite me to things, kids in tow. Many of them will play with Scott or hold Jeremy. But I still miss out on nights out dancing, at bars, comic con, disney trips... because I have kids. All of this is obvious and very "well duh!", but let's refer to that 25 point IQ drop I mentioned before. Even knowing how it will change your life going in, it's still hard to seriously wrap your head around it until you've lived it for a while.
This too shall pass. When I'm 45 and my kids are off in college, and my friends still have tweens at home, I'll be off doing things that they want to do! I hope.
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