I've received scrapes, bumps and bruises from my children doing various cruel things to me. There was the whack to the bridge of the nose with a hard plastic toy that left me with a large lump and a bruise. There was the skinned knee when they ran through my legs and took me down off the edge of the sidewalk. I knew parenting was not for the fearful, but I didn't know it would be so physically painful.

And today the one year old tried a new trick. He stuck his finger up my nose and scratched. When I stopped crying, I got to clean up the blood dripping down my face.

Conceiving the children is the fun part of the full contact sport, but the painful part of full contact starts with birth and continues on much longer.