As parents, we say no quite a bit. No, you can’t go outside in the thirty degree weather wearing a tank top and shorts. No, you can’t have pancakes for dinner after eating them for breakfast. No, just because you bathed yesterday does not mean you don’t have to bathe today if you’re covered in dirt and smell. No, no, no!!

Sometimes, it feels really good to say yes.

Yes, you can have that video game. Yes, you can get that stuffed animal. Yes, I’ll buy you that toy.

Unfortunately, many parents aren’t able to say those yeses, much as they may want to.

“I demoted myself.”

A friend shared this with me one summer day while we were chasing our kids at the beach. We had graduated college together almost 12 years ago and now both work full-time. This statement totally summed up my return to work and what some women our age are, in fact, doing…demoting themselves.

Should I lean-in, lean-out, opt-in, or opt-out? Should I work part-time, full-time or stay home?

1. Take a good, close look at your walls. They will make you want to cry and then hose down your house with disinfectant.

2. Swear. Even if your kid still pronounces “banana” as “babana,” as soon as you drop a profanity – just once – the little tyke will say it perfectly and repeatedly, in the most horrifying of places (like the doctor’s office or your grandmother’s house).

3. Assume the toddler-who-never-gets-into-things won’t get into things. Our toddler was not the type of kid who would take my $900 camera off its hook, unearth it from its protective bag, and smear liquid hand soap all over it. But, oh yes. He did.