She came in through the bathroom window: why having children dooms you to a life of physical and emotional exhaustion

I was having an online chat with a friend who has two small children and she mentioned that they woke up every day at 5am.

At first I empathised with my poor sleep-deprived friend. But then I thought, what about me?

Last weekend, my eldest daughter Precious Princess (PP) crawled in through the bathroom window at 5am (she'd lost her front-door key -again).

Prior to this, I went to bed at around 11pm, woke at 2am to check if she was home, sent her a text (where are you?) to which there was no reply, called her mobile and left a message (why don't you ever answer your phone, where are you?), sent another text (why do you always do this to me? I am worried sick. You could be dead and lying by the side of the road somewhere) and left another message (do you realise how stressed this makes me? all I ask is that you call me. I can't do this anymore. where are you?).

At around 5am, I received a text message: home. safe. nightie night XXX.

My partner Spanner had to get up at 5.30am, so there wasn't much point going back to sleep. When Spanner went downstairs, he discovered a trail of dirt that started on the bathroom window ledge and ended at PP's bedroom door, which was firmly closed and remained closed (so, I'm led to believe) until early that afternoon.

As I explained to my friend, at least when they're little you have the energy to cope with them. But when they're older, you're older too.

The moral to this story is, once you have kids you will always be exhausted. And then you die.

PS: If you happen to find a key, it probably belongs to my front door.
PPS: I believe this is karma; I am being paid back for all the horrible things I did to my parents when I was PP's age.