When people ask how my husband and I are doing with our two toddlers, I’ve started to tell them that we’re now calling our lives A Tale of Two Kiddies. Because thanks to them, we’ve never been so happy and so miserable at once. Consider the following recent breakfast-time scenario in my house. 

    Zach [three-year-old]: Mom, I want my sippy cup. 
    Me: It’s right in front of you. 
    Zach: But I want it. 
    Me: (Pointing) It’s right there. 
    Zach: But I want milk in it. 
    Me: But you said you wanted water. 
    Zach: But I want milk. 
    Me: Fine. Here. 
    Cleo [one-year-old]: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! 
    Zach: (Takes a sip) Oh, but I want water. 
    Me: Sorry, pal. You already changed your mind once. Now you’ve got milk.
    Zach: (Yelling) BUT I WANT WATER. 
    Me: (Initiating the 1-2-3 time out system, in which he is not allowed to badger) Zach, that’s 1. 
    Zach: BUT MOMMY, I DON’T WANT A TIME OUT. I WANT WATER! AGUA! IN MY CUP! 
    Cleo: (Throwing waffle on floor) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! 
    Me: (Stopping to clean Cleo’s breakfast off floor) That’s 2. 
    Zach: (Realizing he’s about to get a time out) Oh Mommy, I have a nice song for you. 
    Me: (Relieved.) Really? How does it go? 
    Zach: (Singing at top volume) Oh I want agua, I want agua, I want aguaaaaaa. 
    Cleo: (Rubbing banana in hair) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

There are days when, as my husband puts it, being a parent of a one-year-old and a three-year-old is very much like someone flicking you on the forehead over and over, and over and over, and over and over again. And you aren’t allowed to get mad and yell, or even show annoyance. Because they’re not necessarily doing it on purpose. But that doesn’t matter, because the effect on your psyche is the same: exhaustion, self-pity, and the feeling of having been sorely victimized.

And here’s the worst part: just when you think you’re at your wits end, your torturer wins you over by saying something funny, loving, or adorable.

Consider this continuation of the above conversation:

    Me: Wow. You know, I really do like it when you sing, but can you sing a different song? That one’s still about water, and I’m not crazy about it. 
    Zach: You think my song is kind of crappy?

That’s right: toddlers are miniature agents of Stockholm syndrome. In the middle of driving you stark raving mad, they toss out a tiny nut of love or neediness – just enough to melt you. They say something that’s just outrageously funny or heartbreakingly darling. Or something full of simple, bald love. Something that shakes you, puts a pit in your stomach, and with rock-solid certainty let’s you know that this is no adversary, let alone torturer. This tiny person is the single most poignant blessing in your life. And you would do anything for them.

And then, not two minutes later, they pick up where they left off, on the task of flicking you in the forehead.

Did I say in my last installment that I was only lowering expectations of my life, not my children’s? Well, I stand corrected. Because it seems that in one fell swoop, I’m going to lower them for both of us at the same time.

Rest assured, I’m cringing as I get closer to writing what I’m about to. But here it is: I have just purchased a leash for my child.

Go ahead. Sneer. Call DSS if you must. I barely blame you. Before becoming a parent, I used to catch sight of these absurd tethers in malls and first shudder, then burst out laughing.  I’d have to forcibly stop myself from running off and buying scissors to cut them. And oh, how readily I judged: “If you’re too lazy to run after your kids, don’t have them in the first place.” In my book, they were nothing less than a big honkin’ sign that spelled out: “Sorry, But I Refuse my Child the Inherent Freedoms of Childhood.”

And now, here I am buying one of the damn things. Actually, make that two – one for each of my toddlers. Not, thank God, because we’re going to the mall, but because we’re traveling literally to the edge of a cliff.

The backstory: Our kids are 18 months apart and both under three. After nearly three years of never-ending diaper changes, administering time outs, fights over toys, trading nights out for nights home, good restaurants for family-friendly ones, the adventure of global travel for the safety of home, and just generally forgoing our personal needs for theirs, we finally said to hell with it and got ourselves plane tickets for two trips: one to Paris and Morocco, the other to the Grand Canyon.

Paris I haven’t been back to since pre-motherhood, and Morocco my husband and have always wanted to see. But the markets in Marrakech are reportedly incredibly easy to get lost in, and each side of each aisle is 20 bodies deep. Then, supposing we survive that trip, we’ve got a family wedding in Arizona, the ceremony for which is taking place directly on the rim of the Grand Canyon. Let our kids lose on either one of those two adventures, and we very well may lose or kill them. Let the record show, we will <I>never</I> use the leashes on a daily basis -- at the mall, in a park, at Disneyland, whatever. In fact, after the Canyon trip, I hope to God we never use them again.

Even so, I’ve suddenly become someone who ties up her children like livestock. The idea still makes me shudder and laugh, but mostly just shudder. At myself, sure, but even more so at the reality of caring for a child’s well being. Does this really mean I’m one of those mall morons who treats my offspring like a weimaraner? No, but it makes me feel like one anyway. Do I do it because I don’t care about my kids? Just the opposite. Does the act in its own right make me a crappy parent? I really don’t think so.

But I look in front of me, and I envision my kids out there exploring the souks of Marrakech. Not quite free, but safely meandering a new environment they never could have been in if we hadn’t made a compromise that made my skin crawl for a moment. And somewhere behind me, well, there’s the woman who never could have conceived of making such a sacrifice

My first admission: I nearly titled this blog “What to Expect When You’re Lowering Your Expectations.” But my husband assured me that it was just depressing, and made it sound as though I’d been sentenced to ten years in the underworld by becoming a mother. So I assured him that, though ‘underworld’ wasn’t exactly what I was getting at, being sentenced to ten years of hard labor sometimes didn’t feel that far off, either.

What can I say. It had been a particularly frustrating day on the potty training front.

I also reminded him of all the things we’d given up since having our two toddlers -- Zach, who’s three, and Cleo, fifteen months. My husband and I have spent most of our adult lives as magazine writers and editors. We used to enjoy the kind of lives that our close friends would bitch at us with unabashed jealousy over: We co-authored travel books and articles together, and jumped on planes almost as often as we now wash sippy cups. I was a food writer; we ate at candlelit restaurants and pretended to be embarrassed by the fuss when the chef came over to schmooze. He wrote about politics and arts, and I also covered (and still do cover) fashion. So every other week it seemed we were heading to a rally in Barcelona, interviewing B-lister celebs (all of whom thought they were A-listers), debating politics into the wee hours, and splurging on clothes that cost as much as a week of our Montessori does now. (He insists I be clear that that last one was all me, not him.)

But of course, he already knew all of this. What he needed reminding of was where the ‘lowering your expectations’ bit came in. See, here’s the funny thing: When we started in on this crazy experiment called parenthood, way back when we were just talking about getting pregnant, we were beyond certain we’d be part of the new crop of parents. You know, not those doomed-to-dorkiness mom and pops of yore, but the brave new generation of hipster twenty- and thirtysomethings who supposedly bring their humor, their effortless cool and offbeat glam attitude to raising kin. We’d bring the tykes with us on global jaunts! We couldn’t wait to dress them in baby Marc Jacobs and tiny rock tees! They’d be the best-behaved diners at hot restaurants!

In other words, we had no idea what the hell we were talking about.

Actually, it all worked for a little while with Zach, who was an unbelievably mellow infant. Then he learned the word NO and the fine art of manipulation. And then Cleo was born. And all hell broke loose. Traveling became a military operation. Dinners out? A fire drill of keeping the monkeys entertained between crammed barely-tasted food into our mouths, with any conversation centering on which coaches Thomas the Damn Tank Engine likes to pull most, not movies or, God forbid, politics. And while Marc Jacobs kids’ clothes may be adorable, the little tadpoles grow so fast that the thought of paying hundreds for an outfit they’d wear all of twice didn’t get my sartorial heart pounding – it just pissed me off. As for my own wardrobe, every cool designer shirt I owned had either puke or yogurt on it. Within months of having two kids under two, we were the equivalent of hipster parenting road kill.

So lower our expectations we have. Not for them, for us. Because of course they matter most. It may be one of the most abused clichés out there, but it is such because it’s also one of the most indisputable facts: Once these little buggers come into your life, with all their midnight cries and potty refusals and hilarious comebacks and grody runny nose kisses and unfettered trust, there’s no amount of lifestyle fabulosity we’d trade it for.

That said, we still haven’t been able to give up on our former selves entirely, either. We’re down, but not out – and that’s what my blog here will contend with. I still boycott and openly sneer – with no apology, so don’t even try to make me feel guilty about it – at crappy kid-magnet fast food chains, Garanimals, and Barney. And through either pure hubris or pure tenacity, we’ve just gone and booked ourselves a trip to Paris and Morocco. For the entire family. Because lowering your expectations is one thing. But throwing them out the window is just premature death -- and one more reason, as soon as the kids get old enough to realize it, for them to think we’re huge losers.