The baby blues are no joke

I love my babies. I love their smell and kissing their chubby cheeks and snuggling with them. Babies are supposed to make everything happy and shiny and wonderful, or at least that's what new moms (or second-time moms, or third, or fourth) are programmed to think. And then the baby comes and you sit there thinking, "What the hell did I get myself into?"

Don't get me wrong, there are days where everything is happy and shiny and wonderful. More often than not, those days happen to fall on weekends when there is an extra pair of hands to tag team the rugrats. Then there are days where you find yourself cowering in a corner while crying hysterically on the phone to your mother and wondering if you were insane when you considered having a second child. True story. Happened yesterday.

That's what happens when you haven't had solid sleep for 8 weeks and counting, the art easel with paint falls over and spills paint everywhere, the 3-year old tracks paint all over the carpet (and it's your fault because you told him to move, damn it!), ants are crawling all over your living room and you come home from a hellish day of doctor's appointments where both of your babies cried for no reason and the two other adults living in your house were home all day but did nothing to clean the mess that keeps piling up. And it all happens within five minutes of being home. Oh yeah, and as soon as you got home, the baby starts crying again.

Never mind the fact that all of your friends who have recently had their second babies make it look easy. I think that's why women don't want to talk about the fact that they are struggling, because everyone thinks everyone else is fine and nobody wants to be the first one to speak up. Or at least I hope that's the case, because there are definitely days where I'm not fine. On those days, I can't help but close my eyes and pray that when I open them, I'll be transported to days past, laying on a raft in our pool in Agoura or sitting on the porch with my roomies and the only person I'm responsible for is myself. Sometimes not even myself.

But then you have days where your baby slept for a solid six hours and your 3-year old isn't throwing the Terrible Threes at you and you wonder how you could ever not be fine.

Ah, the joys of motherhood.