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I Finally Have a Personal Helper and I’ve Never Been More Exhausted

6 min readJul 6, 2024

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image of two young children sitting on a washing machine, making silly faces
Photo by Joshua Lewis on Unsplash

My tires screeched a plea for mercy as I sped into the mall parking lot with thirty minutes to spare before the birthday party. As Joey wailed in the backseat that her sister wouldn’t stop kissing her, I turned to see Kelsey fast asleep in her car seat, non-puckered lips nowhere near Joey.

Great. Not only was I going to be late to my friend’s kid’s birthday but now Kelsey had found a way to torture her big sister without having to be awake for it.

I was halfway to the party before I realized I’d forgotten to buy a gift. I convinced myself that a pit stop to the mall with a two and three-year-old in tow wouldn’t take long since I’d mapped out the most boring, non-child-friendly route to the children’s clothing store. My friend had asked that no one buy her kid any toys — an unfortunate request since I never got to properly thank her for gifting Kelsey a music set complete with cymbals and a drum for her last birthday.

My daughters groaned as I dragged them past the battery kiosk and The Newspaper Store. We made it to our destination in record time, both kids none the wiser that they’d missed all the fun stores full of opportunities to beg for crap they didn’t need.

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The Parenting Portal
The Parenting Portal

Published in The Parenting Portal

The home of parenting articles written by parents and about parents.

Kendra Sparkles
Kendra Sparkles

Written by Kendra Sparkles

I'm off somewhere writing a novel...