There are days I envy my friends who don’t have children. Kids are very expensive and most of the time they're pretty gross. (I’ve always wondered about the moms who eat off their kids plates because frankly, I wouldn’t eat anything my kids fingers have been all over. I’ve seen the noses those fingers go up and frequently, it’s not just their own.) My husband and I, after a very long week of shouting parent stuff at the kids, like to, in the solitude of the two of us, wax on about what our lives would be without the three moffets that rule our house.

We envision last-minute jaunts to New York, two weeks in Italy(no one, not even your own parents will babysit that long), weekends spent doing nothing, sex anytime of the day, anywhere in the house, as noisy as we like and more disposable income than we could ever imagine. We wonder what it must be like to make risky career moves without the weight of the responsibility for those little mouths that need feeding. We consider the significantly lower cost of a mortgage in the less kid-friendly, award-winning school neighborhoods we'd be happy to live in were we childless.

The truth is we probably wouldn’t do most of the things we imagine. My husband and I both love to travel but are essentially homebodies. In reality we would probably sleep in more, play video games(him) or download pirated music and write for more than 15 minute blocks without getting someone juice or settling some sibling dispute(me). We'd see more movies in the theater, I’m certain I would read more, as I did before the kids and our vacations would be more spontaneous as would our sex life.

But then my four year old tells me I'm beautiful and says, “Happy birthday mom, I love you” even though it’s not anywhere near my birthday, just something she’s been saying for months. And my son, very unbigboylike plants his 7 year old hieny on my lap, his eyes pleading to be held for a few minutes, and my baby shrieks with delight to see me after only an hour apart. And the moments when all of us are together whether it’s laughing at the dinner table or huddled together watching a movie and I look at my husband and he looks at me and we know, this is how it is supposed to be for us. Not for everyone but for us.

But it’s good to dream, and those spontaneous trips to New York, the anytime anywhere nookie, I’ll save that list for the days our kids are gone and we find ourselves shrugging our shoulders wondering what will we do without them.