.......that even when you know you're doing the right thing as a parent, you still feel like a big jerk.

I could actually just leave things there and everyone in the world who is a parent would know exactly what I'm talking about. It's one of the many rather disconcerting little surprises you stumble upon sometime after having your own child. No one warned you about it. Not really. Sure you heard you own parents often say things like....."this is harder for me that it is for you" when they punished you. Or....."this is hurting me as much as it's hurting you" when they spanked you. And you never thought they were lying, necessarily. You maybe just figured they were merely trying to make you feel better.

But let me tell you, they weren't. They were trying to make themselves feel better. Because I have discovered......20 months into this parenting thing......IT SUCKS.

You know you have to discipline. You know you cannot let them have their way all the time. You know you have to be firm and ignore the whining and the tears and yes, the inevitable screaming. But even the un-shakeable knowledge, buried deep in the back of your mind, that you are doing the right thing, is absolutely meaningless in the moment. You feel guilty. You feel mean. You feel like a terrible, terrible person. And unlike your child's feelings, which will do a complete 180 in 2 seconds, yours linger. For hours. For days.

You have to learn not only how to talk your child through the appropriate discipline process, you have to learn to talk yourself through it as well; which is exactly where the whole..... "this is as hard on me....." speech comes in. I don't know if I'll ever say those words to E when she gets bigger. Maybe. I heard it and never got it so I hold out little hope for her. But someday when she's a mom and she calls me, fighting tears, to say how hard it is to put her screaming toddler down for a nap and just walk away, I say "I know honey, I know." And I truly, truly will.