Hiss, bubble, hiss. "Oh no!" I yelled as I walked faster. "Is that the water boiling over on my stove?" THUMP, shuffle, THUMP, shuffle THUMP, shuffle. Just as I made it in the kitchen to clean up the water, the doorbell rang. THUMP, shuffle, THUMP, shuffle. My 3-year-old daughter stood in a large puddle on the porch. "I went potty in my socks!" she said proudly.

Ring! Ring! "Does anyone know where the cordless phone is?" I yelled. I found the phone on the fifth ring, just as the caller went into voicemail. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. I went to the front door – no one. THUMP, shuffle, THUMP to the back door where my 6-year-old stood at the patio door. "Charlie threw sand in my eyes and I'm hungry!" THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. All shuffling is quiet because this time, it is the sound of my head banging against the wall. "Is it time for bed yet?" I ask to anyone who might be listening. I grab a tissue and blow my nose because I'm battling my sixth cold in six weeks.

Ring! Ring! This time, I am close to the phone and make it in time. A friend is on the other end. "Is this a good time?" she asks. How ironic. I can't remember the last time I had a good time, let alone any time. Oh wait, there was that minute of romanticism my husband and I shared last night. We only had one nasal strip left between the two of us. We were so plugged, I don't think either of us could have smelled a scared skunk in our bedroom. As my husband placed the nasal strip on his nose, he glanced over at my forlorn expression. Sighing, he slowly peeled off the nasal strip, taking all the dead skin from the top of his nose from the last 10 years. "Here you go, honey," he said as he handed the nasal strip to me. I don't think I'd ever felt so much love for him since our wedding day. "Dat iz so domantic!" I gasped in his face with sinusitis breath. With a horrified look on his face, he rolled over and said, "Did you brush your teeth tonight?"

Kids really change your life. Before I got married, I dreamed of bathing little babies in warm water, kissing their sweet heads and helping my cheerful, motivated children with their homework. Experienced parents told me that kids weren't always cute, that sometimes they threw up on your shirt or worse, on your face. They didn't always want to do their homework and sometimes they were just downright lazy. Sometimes you didn't even want to kiss their sweet heads, because quite honestly, their heads smelled like dirt, bugs and other kids' vomit. I attributed all these comments to disgruntled parents. After all, it was obvious they gave birth to social misfits. My children would never, ever, never, ever, never, ever throw tantrums in restaurants, mouth off, take their pants off outside in front of the neighbors.

Eventually, I woke up. I think reality struck the day I carried a hysterical child under each arm to the car at the mall, as they both pulled off their pants and yelled, "We don't love you anymore!" As I burned rubber and made a fast getaway in my four-door sedan, I wondered, "Whose idea was this anyway?" Certainly not mine. Must have been that husband with the exfoliated nose. While driving home, I held a tissue as one child blew her nose, quizzed the other one on math problems and made a grocery list. In the corporate world, they call this multitasking. In my world, they call it just another day.

Motherhood is a tough job. It doesn't come with a generous sign-on bonus, health insurance and lunch meetings where you don't have to cut up anyone's meat. It comes with a lot of patience, love and understanding – and some of that you hope to keep for yourself. There are many days you'd like to forget, and many you wish you could remember forever. Childbirth is a great beginning to motherhood – the pain is intense; the work is hard. The reward speaks for itself.

It is quiet in the house now. They are sleeping. THUMP, shuffle, THUMP, shuffle. I slowly walk to their bedroom and look in. I swear I see angel wings sprouting from their little backs. Then I realize they have made Superhero capes from my Victoria's Secret white lace lingerie.

My headache is back.

Vicky DeCoster Author of Husbands, Hot Flashes, and All That Hullabaloo! and
The Wacky World of Womanhood www.wackywomanhood.com