Well put pmegan, although I'd disagree that an office job cannot be "hard." I'm a lawyer, and I think my job is quite difficult, as I'm sure the original poster's job is difficult. Some things get routine and easier with practice, but there are always also many knew things that are difficult, at least for me.

But, I once switched jobs and had the opportunity to take 6 weeks off of unused leave between those jobs. I stayed home with our two young kids during that time. I'll tell ya, after about 3 weeks I was counting down the days to going back to work. Was it hard in the intellectual sense? No, but as you said pmegan, it is DRAINING. It is hard to explain exactly why that is, but it is.

You don't have to be a genius to take care of a kid all day (thank God), but you do need to be conscientious, responsible, good at solving problems, and patient. It ain't easy being all those things 24/7/365.