…

1:53 p.m.: Nate has been napping for more than an hour. I am completely amazed, yet wonder why I didn’t use this as “quiet time” for Toby so I could have napped, too. I feel a disproportionate amount of remorse.

2:25 p.m.: “Quiet time” for Toby, and we’re all piled in bed. Nate is now wide awake and extra squirmy. I find myself falling asleep for 30-second intervals while both boys stare at me. I consider how much money I would be willing to pay someone at this moment to whisk the boys away right now so I could sleep for just ten minutes. I decide $1,000 is not unreasonable.

4:02 p.m.: Snack time. Banana for Toby. Big bowl of cereal for me. Boobs for Nate.

4:38 p.m.: The children’s room at the library is amazingly peaceful. Toby is having the time of his life playing with old and broken toys, and Nate is resting quietly in my lap without squirming. I take a deep breath and think how lovely my boys are.

5:39 p.m.: Back from the library, I place Toby in front of the TV with as little guilt as possible so I can put Nate to bed with my patented “boob, bath, boob” routine: I nurse Nate with one boob, give him a quick bath, and then nurse him with the second boob.

6:24 p.m.: I’m enjoying the relative peace of dinner with Toby and no baby to jiggle. I laugh extra hard at his jokes, hoping to butter him up for our bedtime routine.

7:49 p.m.: Much screaming ensues when Toby loses special second-book privileges, which he’d earned by not insisting I come into his room last night at his 2:38 a.m. waking. Tragically, the bonus is lost when he persists in counting how many old toothbrushes are in the cup in the bathroom despite my pointing out that it is time to get into pj’s and that it is too late to count toothbrushes tonight. My previous buttering-up seems to have had little impact.

8:26 p.m.: I’m in bed drinking hot tea and eating a Double Chocolate Milano cookie. I’ve gotten both boys off to bed all by myself and feel as if I’ve just climbed Mount Everest and deserve praise and admiration from others. I remember particularly cute things each of my boys did that day — extra-good smiles from Nate and extra-good Muppets imitations from Toby. Having children may actually have been a pretty good plan.

9:03 p.m.: I jerk awake as I hear my husband coming upstairs. I realize I still have to pump or my boobs will wake me up all on their own in a few hours. I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less, but I pump anyway.

10:44 p.m.: I wake up briefly to noises of my husband giving Nate a late-night bottle. I am enormously happy that I am not involved in any way. I’m even happier that because I did pump, I can now turn over and snuggle onto my stomach to sleep. I decide that stomach sleeping is one of the greatest pleasures in life. I wonder for a moment what the night ahead will be like. I wonder if I will ever be able to fall asleep without worrying about when I will have to wake up next. I fall asleep seven seconds later.

But if you’re rich, stacks of $100 bills will do all of this for you.