The hardest job on earth...

Parenting is so hard.  There should be a book given to teenagers when they decide to be sexually active describing the career path they're about to take. I'll write the first page. 

"Parenting- always hiring. Everyone qualifies, although not all will be successful or reach the same gratification. Hours are long, actually never ending. Appreciation will take at least 20 years of excruciating labor, even then you may not ever see it. The stress, anxiety, fears, sleep deprivation and resentment will last for at least a decade. Bathing, toileting, sleeping, cooking, and pretty much every other activity will come with an audience and usually a dozen questions. You will sacrifice nearly every piece of who you are. You will say things you never imagine, like 'don't lick the shopping cart. We always wear pants in public. Please don't poop in the yard!'  You will laugh and be thankful for each and every day you experience these horrors, but I promise, you will question your sanity...daily. "

That about sums it up. We don't get paid. In fact, we shell out thousands of dollars for sports to sit in unbearable heat, gaining hideous tan lines, to shout at an umpire and have a kid who is embarrassed that you arrived. We car pool our tiny humans everywhere, just to have them ask you to drop them off around the corner so their friends don't see. We shell out a small fortune for an education to be told they've decided to take a semester off and bar tend. 

We are disappointed a billion times over, but not in our kids. We disappoint ourselves. We failed at teaching respect. We said just walking away was the better option to violence, and when that sweet baby gets bullied you contemplate if violence really was the answer. The first swear word spoken from innocent lips will take your soul across the hot coals of hell, and you will regret the parental temper tantrum. 

See parenting doesn't come with a manual. It does, but no one reads it. It's the oldest person sitting at Christmas dinner. They'll tell you, but you won't listen. We all learn the hard way, and we stretch our nerves, budget and yoga pants to the last possible thread. 

We love our tiny humans, but man we often wonder "what the hell were we thinking?!" You're never prepared to have kids. You don't have enough money, patience or space, but somehow we always make a little room. When they grow up we sit and marvel. Only when they have children do we see our success.