I quit! Oh, but I can't

It has been one of those weeks. It started with the snot. Lots and lots of snot. And fever. Magnus was the first to come down with a cold. He was warm, clingy and snotty. Then Logan got it. Logan is always whiny so it wasn't a huge adjustment. And then Cyrus, the World's Most Perfect baby, was the last to contract the cold. He was hot and unhappy and not his usual adorable self. I suppose, in retrospect, I should have been grateful that they didn't come down with it at the same time.  I guess they spared me. But the mister was traveling, my mother didn't show up because she was unwell, and I woke up one day, exhausted and spent and just said it aloud. I QUIT.

It felt nice to say it. Cathartic, at least for a few minutes. But reality hit. Babies fussing in their cribs, Magnus needing help with his Batman socks, and a sense of dread took hold. I can't quit. I can't ever quit this job.

I appreciate what an ingrate I must sound like. As my mother tells me all too frequently, I wanted this. (Technically, I wanted another child, a sibling for Mags, but hell, twins sounded cool.) You should be grateful, she tells me as we drive with the kids to a park and pass a field with rows of migrant workers stooped over in the unforgiving heat. You get to stay home and be with them, do you know how many people would kill to be in your position? To stay home and not work?

No, I don't. I want to work, sometimes. At a different job. At a different job that doesn't involve rounds of tush cleaning, breaking up baby fights, pulling tiny objects out of clenched fists, smashing peas into edible mush and fingers pulling at me constantly, fingers creeping under the door to the bathroom when I dash to pee because I've been holding it so long. I want a break. I want to sit on a beach for a week while someone fills my endless margarita glass and applies sunscreen to my face because I slather it on everyone else and don't have the willpower to do it for me.

But I can't quit this job. And ultimately, as hard as it is, it is the best job I will ever have. I get to raise three beautiful, healthy children. Me, I get to do it! And on days when I want to give up and head back to an office building, I look at Logan with his round cheeks, blonde curls, and he smiles at me with milk on his chin.

Can't leave him. Can't do it. I have got to survive this job, one dirty diaper at a time.