Ask anyone and they’ll tell you parenting is painful. Watching your children fall, or fail at something, or cry will break your heart. But no one tells you that parenting is LITERALLY PAINFUL. Annabel has been causing me physical pain since before she was born.

It started with the regular kicks, but then she progressed to kicking my cervix. I had never felt anything like that before – Madeline never kicked me there. If you’ve never been kicked in the cervix, it feels like…slamming into the support bar of a bicycle. I was pretty sure she was trying to break out.

Little babies have all these herky jerky spazzy movements, since they can’t really control their limbs. Like a baby deer, or a contestant on Dancing With The Stars. Maddie and Annie punched me in the face or scratched my chest countless times. I photoshopped many a tiny baby scratch and bruise off pics of me and the girls.

But lately…besides the fact that Annie is now hitting (although we’ve done a good job of curtailing it thanks to all of your advice), she head-butts me all the time. Usually I can see it coming.

She swaggers toward me:

coming for you mama

And she has this look on her face:

I AM GOING TO MAKE YOU BLEEEEEEED

Am I going to pick up the kid attached to that face? HELLLLLLL NO.

But then she tricks me. She comes over all happy, and says, “Uppa mama!” and reaches for me. So I oblige. We giggle and play, and then *WHAM*.

Head butt. Annie thinks they are HILARIOUS. Seriously, she laughs and laughs. Her giant Spohrhead feels no pain.

She has given me two bloody noses in ten days.

Yeah, my eyes are puffy from the massive amounts of sneezing and, um…crying…that I did with this head butt. It HURT.

(And lest you think I am the only one getting injured, Annie has an uncanny ability to punish Mike. When he’s laying on the ground playing with her, she always manages to fall or step right on the family jewels.)

I have no idea how to stop the head butting, but I am going out to buy protective gear and cover-up makeup ASAP. I suggest all new parents do the same.