Puppies and bunnies and parenting

When I first became a parent, I felt I was surrounded by images, stories, myths and general social pressure about how great parenting was supposed to be. Everyone was desperately in love with their children. Stepford wives abounded. I felt it was my job to be honest and expose the lie for what it was! I was a pioneer.. the first to admit that parenting is hard, and I did not like it. I became comfortable being negative about it even though it always felt rebellious.
Things have shifted for me quite a bit. Losing almost everything (thankfully temporarily) last spring has given me a very different perspective. I feel such immense gratitude for my life (even started a blog with that theme to be published soon) and even greater gratitude (immenser? immensest?) that I get to spend every day with my kids. Now I see I am decidedly less comfortable describing how much I am enjoying our time together. I find incessantly upbeat people rather dull. But now I notice all of the people, articles, blogs, books that articulate that negative side. For some reason, I never really noticed how much complaining there already is about parenting. Turns out I was not much of a pioneer. I think the point is that I have always felt compelled to be honest about this enormous topic. The funny thing is is that nothing about my life has changed.. only my perspective is different.

I love this picture of two of my favorite gals: