The Pterodactyl wanted his little sister’s purse this morning, her pink shiny purse with the enormous heart-shaped rhinestone buckle. She carries it everywhere. It usually contains her Teddy, an old remote control she uses as a cell phone, and something ridiculously inappropriate like a screwdriver.

“That’s hers,” I told him. “Do you want a purse? I’ll find you a purse.” But he wanted that one because that’s the one SHE had. That’s how I think he thinks of the Tyrant — SHE — as in SHE’S the one who came into this family and took my rightful spot as the most adorable child on the planet, thereby ruining my life.

Finally the Tyrant understood the problem and offered to give her 4-year-old brother the pink shiny purse. She can be very helpful when she’s not throwing shoes at my head. But her generosity ruined the purse for him. He no longer wanted it. Instead he started pining for a piece of raw cookie dough. I gave it to him because I knew it would get us in the car.

Ten minutes later, we were on the road headed to preschool with the kids harmonizing to Boom Boom Pow by the Black-Eyed Peas (Them chickens jackin’ my style) and I started thinking about how funny it all is, because if I don’t think that way then I’ll cry. I was crying anyway, in fact.

People tell me I’m funny, and I suppose I can be, mostly in a warped, snide sort of way. I only know two jokes. (How did Captain Hook die? Jock itch. The other one’s too long to writel.) But I must tell you that most of the time, I don’t feel funny at all. Lots of times I just feel beaten and frustrated and exhausted. Over the past week, the Pterodactyl has told me to pack my suitcase and move to China, and has developed a fondness for tearing paper money in half. The Tyrant won’t eat anything except power bars and Easy Mac, and I’ve taken to bribing her with candy to convince her to wear underpants. The Diva is very nearly perfect. But she loses almost everything she owns every single day. She wears about four outfits each day. She needs an attendant, frankly.

So I feel like crying quite often just from the sheer volume of stuff to do and monitor, and I cry a lot. I’ve never thought of having a facelift, but I think I’ve cried so much that my eyelids will eventually droop down and blind me. Then I’ll have to have surgery.

I’m glad people laugh at my blog, and I’m glad I can find humor and joy amidst the craziness. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer an empathetic fist bump to those of you wading through the muck like me, and tell you that I know it can be a bitch. Sometimes, it’s just not funny.