and I've never been more ready

Our old dog Sadie is sleeeeepy, yawning, moving around and staring at one of us, then the other. I'm lying on the floor, whispering, "Shhh, lie dowwwn," then one of us will sneeze or cough and she's up again.



Sadie is definitely a toddler at bedtime. "Someone talk to me! I'm not sleepy!" I half expect her to say, "Read me a story!"

I tell Casey, "This is what a toddler is like, pretty much, and this is sometimes what you do to help them sleep." He laughs, and Sadie hops up. "Crap."

Yes, it's just like this.

I've never actually parented, never been the one to take the kid with the greenstick fracture to the ER, the one to have to cancel plans because the sitter got sick.

I've been the sitter, been a nanny, been the one who stayed with the older kids for a few weeks while parents traveled. I've unclogged toilets, I've unclogged children, I've read endless books out loud, then endless books of my own silently as the child struggled next to me not to sleep. I've been vomited on, I've been shat on, I've been bitten. I've been told "I hate you" by a child who meant it, and learned in that moment what it really means, from a child, and how much quiet sympathy it demands.

I know children, and I know a wide variety of children. I've been teaching young children for years, I have a (small) degree in child development, I'm qualified to run my own school for kids from infancy through kindergarten in California. I understand children academically, and I am a good, intuitive teacher.

That said: I've never parented. I know what it's like to put a toddler to sleep, but I don't know what it's like to run day after day, ragged and sleep deprived, as a baby with gastric reflux issues struggles to sleep herself. I don't know what it's like to find out my child has a dangerous or terminal illness, like some parents do, or to have a child run away from home, or be taken. I don't know what it's like to have a toddler reach up and touch my face, and love me like a mama is loved.

Casey and I are talking about it. "This is what having a toddler is like." "You know we're going to wake up in the middle of the night and step on legos on the bathroom floor and yell, right?" We're discussing what will affect our schooling options, how we dream of spending holidays, and how we'll just put the baby on the floor after meals and let the dogs lick him clean.

But we have no idea what we're getting into, really. It's an adventure beyond imagining.