> * It is a cliche, but kids are only young once. Enjoy that time.

I don't know if I'm wired differently, but my oldest kid is in HS and my youngest is halfway through elementary school, and while I didn't hate the time I spent with my kids, I don't feel like I derived a whole lot of personal enjoyment out of it.

I still would make the same decision -- feeling loved and cared for rather than abandoned is a great gift to any child -- but with a lot of the "milestones" in life it seems to me that a lot of the benefit to doing these things is not staying up late at night wondering if things would have been better had I not missed out...