Today was a day where by the time Sam threw all of his dinner on the floor except for the portion he saved to dump in my bed, I wasn’t even mad, I was just tired.

At that point, he had already licked a trash can. At the post office. Twice.

He had already thrown a doll at Baby William’s head.

It was also one of his sweetest days.

He had a friend over and was so good at sharing.

He sat on my lap a lot.

He put on David’s cycling gear and rode his tricycle super fast so he could race like daddy.

He demanded tickles, stopping me with a “don’t like that!” followed by “wait…I like that!”

I don’t have any deep insights. I’m just tired. And in love with my kiddos. I had gotten to a point where I was reading so many parenting blogs with no filter on whether it was good or not that it was affecting my mood so I laid off for a while, but yesterday I read a post that made me think yes this is hard, and no I’m not crazy, and yes I am privileged, but no that doesn’t make it not hard, and most importantly I am not alone. And that was necessary for me in that moment. So I was inspired to write something, for the first time in forever, because it’s important to keep reminding each other of that.

Parent friends: This is hard. And we’re not crazy.