By Laura T. Coffey, TODAYshow.com contributor

Work-life balance? With kids?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

If you work outside the home and you’re anything like me, you too may have fleeting thoughts of “Ha!” and “Oh brother!” and “What-EVER!” whenever you see reassuring articles about attaining work-life balance as a parent. I say that, and I’ve even written an article or two like that myself. (Although, in my defense, I did try to make those articles uber-practical ... but still!)

The longer I try my hand at this whole parenting gig, the more clearly I see that any illusion of control I have is just that: An illusion. It may be possible to wrest a few things under control some of the time with some hard-core planning and scheduling, but for the most part it’s just a matter of taming chaos on a day-to-day, take-it-as-it-comes basis.

My best friend Dawn Browne -- a mom who has two fabulous kids and a high-pressure job -- summed it up perfectly, I think:

“There is no such thing as balance with children -- only days with blood and/or tears, and days without (including your own),” she said. “Conservatively plan for no bloodless or tearless days for the first five years.”

Here’s another one of my favorite gems from Dawn:

“There’s a fine line between ‘working better under pressure’ and mental illness.”

Indeed!

Bearing all that in mind, here is a list of 10 things no one bothered to tell you about work-life balance before you became a parent. Read on -- if you dare!

1. You will always, always, ALWAYS be tired and always will feel as though you could lie down and sleep for 15 hours straight.

2. Sleep deprivation will lead to a brain-crushing haze that will cause your sharp mind to fade for a minimum of one calendar year, and possibly even longer -– but you’ll have to fake it and pretend nothing is wrong around other people at work.

3. Sleep deprivation also will create in you a strange and inexplicable spelling disorder that will cause you to use the wrong “to,” “your” and “its,” despite your most careful intentions. You’ll also start to spell some words phonetically -- and wildly incorrectly -- all because you’re trying to do too many things at once in much too much of a hurry.

4. While it’s always been mega-challenging on all sorts of levels, work outside the home will become the biggest, most gargantuan, most Herculean effort you ever tackled. You will feel like you completed the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii at the end of most otherwise ordinary work weeks. (Not that I have ANY idea what completing the Ironman in Kona feels like, mind you -- but I watched a documentary about it recently and identified with it in the most uncanny way.)

A grown woman lost her balance and fell onto Picasso's "The Actor" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last week. Have you ever endured a similarly embarrassing moment, either as a clumsy adult yourself or as a parent touring a museum with small, antsy children?

How can one make some money just by carpooling their kids to school? Some savvy stay-at-home moms have found a new way to earn extra cash – by turning their cars into mobile advertising media. Is it a smart opportunity or an intrusive form of advertising?

Find out how the business works and why some moms are earning easy money just for going through their usual routine.

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From Laura T. Coffey, TODAYshow.com contributor

I've never been a real food snob, but living in the Pacific Northwest for many years has rubbed off on me in this undeniable way: I now have a deep and abiding love for good coffee and good beer.

It's funny because I don't drink very much of either beverage. (I couldn't even if I wanted to, for reasons that will soon become apparent.) But the time I do spend drinking good coffee or good beer is an EVENT. Something to be savored. Something to be planned around, even. This is serious business!

Or it had been, at least. Until I had a kid.

It literally took months for me to awaken enough from my sleep-deprived stupor to realize the new pattern that was afflicting me, not just every now and then, but every single day. Each morning I would pour myself a cup of coffee and doctor it up in just the right way, with a little bit of sugar and milk. Then I'd begin tending to my infant son. (As the months wore on, he transformed into a toddler son.) Rush-rush-rush, hustle-bustle-hustle-bustle ... and then I'd finally remember my neglected cup of coffee and take a sip.

"Oh no!" I would think. "It's cold." (Not just lukewarm, by the way. COLD.)

Good coffee ain't cheap, so I'd nuke my cup and soldier on. And then it would get cold – again!

That's when I'd reach a crossroads: Do I nuke it a second time?

I'm frugal, and I already feel guilty enough about the money we spend on coffee, so you can guess what I've been doing. And I'm here to report that thrice-nuked coffee is DISGUSTING, no matter how good the pot was when it was fresh. The milk in it even starts to curdle into solid little doohickeys that float along the top. (Why does THAT have to happen??)

I also can tell you that coffee sitting in a pot for seven-plus hours doesn't taste that great by the time naptime finally rolls around, either – no matter how much you've been waiting to savor it.

I often encounter a photo-negative of the exact same problem in the evenings with beer – not every day of the week, as happens with the coffee, but often enough to notice a pattern. In a spirit of generosity, my husband will crack open a frosty Sierra Nevada for himself and grab one for me too. That open beer bottle will sit there, forlorn and increasingly dripping with condensation, from approximately 6:45 until 9:15 p.m. when I can finally sit down. That's when the beer and I come face to face with one another – and again, I reach a crossroads.

"Hey Michael," I'll say to my husband. "If I put this back in the fridge, will you drink it when it turns cold again?"

"Why would I want to drink an open beer?" he'll say. "I'll just get a new one."

"But this is a perfectly good beer. It just needs to turn cold again."

"Why don't you drink it?"

"I don't think I'll last that long. I think I'll be sleeping by the time it finally turns cold."

And so it comes to pass that on many a weekday morning, I find a bottle of cold Sierra Nevada sitting open on a refrigerator shelf, losing precious fizziness and zip. I'll feel so cut to the heart by this sight that I'll cover the top of the bottle with plastic wrap or tin foil and vow to drink it that night at approximately 9:15 p.m.

It's so nice to have treats like this to look forward to at the end of a long day, isn't it, moms? :-)

How do you solve a problem like the economy?

Let moms handle it!

A group of women in Michigan — armed with “mom intuition” — joined forces to creatively tackle the state’s pressing money woes. Without raising taxes or cutting back on education, they helped the state save $1.09 billion, by such measures as ending the state fair, closing several prison camps and reducing revenue-sharing payments to local governments. Find out how they did it:

Plenty of married and committed women have a silly crush (on their delivery man, favorite celebrity, etc), but at what point does it start being inappropriate? Or does fantasizing about someone else actually help your relationship? Weigh in.

From reporter (and mom) Adrienne Mand Lewin

When it comes to relying on the Web for information, I am far from a novice. I’m a journalist who has spent most of my career writing and reporting online. I frequently make purchases from large retailers, and I’ve bought and sold things on Craigslist. I don’t know how I got through life before there was Google.

Yet when I needed insight regarding my two young kids, the last place I turned to was the Web.

Sure, when I was pregnant I faithfully read sites like BabyCenter and iVillage and found them to be really helpful. But despite all the Web sites, blogs and groups devoted to being a parent, I didn’t think it would be for me. I pictured a world of judgment, snarky comments and criticism, where in anonymity strangers would feel free to offer their opinions in a way that the common courtesy of a conversation at the playground excludes. No, thanks.

What I found in reporting my story about motherhood and community for the TODAYMoms.com launch was actually the opposite. Women are finding support, comfort and friendship among their online peers that supplement their real-world relationships, and in some cases fill a void that those can’t offer. A lot of moms are taking their correspondences offline and making friends they wouldn’t have met if they hadn’t replied to someone’s question or post. And just the feeling of not being alone in their experiences as mothers is reassuring for many.

I don’t know that I’ll become the most active member of any groups or loyal reader of a particular blog. But next time one of my little guys does something strange that I’m sure no other child has ever done, chances are I won’t hesitate to look to other moms in cyberspace who can tell me what’s up. What about you?

Read Adrienne's full article, Motherhood 2.0: It takes an (online) village, on TODAYshow.com.

From Natalie Morales, TODAY host and national correspondent

On Thursday we talked to Anita Tedaldi, a woman who adopted a child and then gave him up 18 months later. As horrible as that headline sounds, you realize how just complicated the situation was and how agonizing the decision to give up little “D.” was when you read Anita’s own account. It’s a piece that will bring you to tears.

When that essay was first published in the New York Time’s Motherlode blog, many people accused Anita of being irresponsible for taking on more than she could handle, for not trying hard enough to make her adoption work (even though she writes about trying everything from months of therapy to bonding sessions with a psychologist, etc.). Several others, however, applauded Anita for her courage and the strength she showed in making what she felt was ultimately the best decision for the child.

No matter how you feel about Anita's decision to terminate her adoption, her story is one almost every mother can relate to on some level. That’s because this is not necessarily about terminating an adoption as it is a story of a woman coming to terms with her emotions and accepting the fact she couldn't be the kind of mom she thought she would be to her adopted child. As much as we all like to think we can do it all, we’ve all had that humbling moment – or many humbling moments -- when we must recognize our own limitations. When was the last time you felt like you weren't a good enough parent? How often have you asked if you are doing the right thing, whether in loving or disciplining your child?