For those of you miserably eking out your days neck deep in the vomit and ire of your tantrum-prone toddler, let me clue you in: the “Terrible Twos” were nothing compared to the “I Will Stab You While You Are Sleeping Nines.” It only gets harder.

Parenting, I’ve discovered, is like true love or being hit repeatedly in the face, in that, you can’t really really know what it’s like until it happens to you. And just when you get it to stop hitting you in the face, it stomps on your neck and starts singing for-kids versions of bad pop music.

If I wrote a parenting book today, it would only have one word written in huge, bold letters on its single page: “Don’t.”

Yes, it was one of those days.