It feels like I just took this selfie yesterday. My face was still puffy from pregnancy hormones and getting no sleep. (Ok, the no sleep thing is still kind of happening.) That feeling of just having a baby… the fogginess, exhaustion, and physical pain, mixed with joy and gratitude for the new beautiful tiny human being is such a different experience from anything else I’ve experienced in my life.

We were still living with my in-laws while our home was being renovated at this time, right after Teddy, our youngest, was born. Andy (my husband) was working his crazy summer schedule as a musician, gone for days at a time. Needless to say, having 4 kids under the age of 6 is hard.

Of course I had been warned before having my first child about how hard life with kids could be. “You’ll never sleep again” or “Enjoy time with your husband now while you can” and other somewhat unhelpful advice. Sure, I knew children are demanding and can be difficult at times. Babies are unpredictable and demanding. Toddlers have endless energy and poor communication skills and are prone to temper tantrums. We’ve all heard about these things but why doesn’t anyone talk about the practical day-to-day demands of parenting?

It may seem boring to some, but I wanted to talk about some of the details of raising small children, WHY it’s challenging, and offer some practical advice from my own experiences. If you are expecting a child, or are planning on becoming a parent, or maybe trying to decide whether to have another, you’ve come to the right place. I could write about this topic for days so I decided to break them up into separate posts to keep it from getting too lengthy:

Leaving the House with Little Kids

Going to the Store is a Chore