SALT LAKE CITY -- In my younger days when I had uno bambino on my hip, I was an expert on parenting. There were only good and bad parents, and I was, of course, in the first group. Always.

Now I have four children under the age of 10, which inducts me into the “hanging on by a thread” style of parenting. And I dabble in the good as well as the bad.

I used to think the following were pure, unadulterated evil: pop tarts, white bread, child leashes, Walmart trips at 8 p.m., school buses and portable electronics.

Also in my younger, simpler days, road trips would follow my planned script:

Act 1, Scene 1: Eat junk food.

Act 1, Scene 2: All children fall asleep in unison with Twizzlers hanging out of their mouths.

Act 1, Scene 3: My husband and I hold hands and talk about life while listening to Dave Matthews or anything not produced by Disney.

Act 1, Scene 4: Children wake up in unison 45 minutes pre-arrival to whine, scream and pee.

I can take 45 minutes. What I can’t take is four hours.

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But that's what I dealt with on our ride back from Thanksgiving one year after visiting family and friends. Traveling with small children requires many skills, many of which I wish I didn't possess. This one drive and its ensuing breakdown guided me to a realization that all the wonky parts of motherhood are really worth the chubby grandbabies they will produce in years to come.

The entire way home, I was the candy snack dispenser, the entertainer and the shusher. Instead of synchronized slumber, one would sleep while the others placed their snack orders, then they’d pass the baton to the next squalling child until all had had equal amounts of screaming and sleeping.

It was a maniac’s version of emotional dominoes. And despite my best scriptwriting, we took a left turn on south side of sanity.

About halfway home, my husband glanced over to see me rocking rhythmically, my forehead intermittently hitting the window, fingers in ears, droning, “We. Are. Getting. A. DVD. Player. For. The .Van.”

Maybe I was tired or full of Thanksgiving starches, but I simply had not an ounce of patience, sympathy or sense of entertainment.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that the back row was having an ongoing dispute as to the proper way of eating trail mix. My preschooler is a lover of all things sweet, not so much a fan of almonds. The tween felt it was her sole duty to report such misdeeds to the authorities. That would be me. And that would be declared over and over.

And over.

So, Ms. Tween was demanding a trial on discrimination against almonds and peanuts while PreKer is defending herself (with chocolate-smeared lips) that she is not just eating the chocolate.

Then my daughter with cerebral palsy joined the fray by signing that she wanted something to eat, but not anything that I currently had available. And then the baby was, of course, poopy — screaming poopy with a capital P.

Fast forward a month to the Sunday before Christmas when we have had therapy, are dressed cute and sitting in church. The feeling in the chapel was different, being Christmas and all.

I began to look around and notice so many families with children and grandchildren visiting. The mothers/grandmothers were glowing brighter than the Bethlehem star, and you could sense it took all their energy to not gather the clan in a continuous bear hug.

For the most part, all the returning kinfolk looked normal and functional in society. They all just looked so happy and unified passing chubby babies sprouting pigtails with red bows up and down the pew.

That’s when my epiphany came full circle and hit me on the back of the head like a bag of unshelled almonds.

Motherhood is like the back row's trail mix: you can’t just pick out the parts you don’t like and keep all the sweet and tender moments. You can’t leave out the stomach flu, the tantrums, the sibling fights, the whining, the screaming and the sleepless nights anymore than you can pick through a 12-oz. bag only eating the milk chocolate. It’s just not as good as when you get a whole handful of nutty-chocolate goodness.

Those moments of craziness and emotional skirmishes somehow, in a twisted way, knit you closer together. Somehow after those challenging moments pass, your love and mutual understanding increases.

And someday 20 years from now, when I’m not sleep deprived and banging my head against Plexiglas, I’ll be snuggling infants with 9-inch leg girth that I can pass down the pew, too.

It’s worth it. It’s all worth it.

Please tell me it’s worth it.

Elizabeth loves embarrassing her children and making others laugh. She currently resides in Montana among beautiful scenery, long winters and an incredible array of hairy animals.

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