what was that song Lamb Chop used to sing?

Here are the cold hard facts with nary a whiff of whine: Simon woke up at 4am yesterday so that he could run to the hospital and round on his patients and then catch a flight to "Saint Vegas" (as Julia calls Sin City ... ) for a conference. He'll return late tonight and head into work bright AND early tomorrow morning for a quick 24 hour shift. So, Simon has a lot to complain about and I should be reveling in ALL of this quality time I'm getting with the children. Okay ... maybe just a quarter tsp of a complaint ... it's feeling a little bit like the marathon that ne-hever ends at this point and to be perfectly honest I'll be rilllll happy when we are in Mass with crazy no-sleep hangovers battling Sebastian's flailing limbs on Sunday morning.

We'll get there.

And then we'll hit up a call weekend next weekend as well. November should be pretty, I guess.

So to break up the thumb twiddling that moms with smallish children tend to do in between allllll of their downtime I took the troops to the regular grocery store last night. We were out of yogurt which is Theo's lifeblood these days and I was in the mood to herd cats in a public place.

I busted out my favorite piece out of outerwear: the vest. I carefully wiped the front down with a baby wipe, threw size 5 shoes on Theo (he wears a size 2) who seems to have no matching socks ever and off we trotted.

I can hear it now ...
"have you heard of the blog, Camp Patton?"
"oh, hmmm is that the one where she only ever types about taking her kids grocery shopping and posts incessant photos of herself in the mirror?"
"yes, it's awful."

(Hair tutorial? I knew you'd ask. Soon!!)

Sometimes I exercise my indulgent parenting skills and let the kids pick one thing to take in the car ... Julia went the unpredictable blankie and sippy route (two things, indulgenter!!) and Sebastian went the traditional dirty cookie sheet route ...

Julia is mothering from the sidelines, "is that your final decision? okay, but you'll have to live with it all the way to the store."

It was a mostly uneventful trip aside from Julia's impromptu dance recital she threw together in the juice/dairy aisle. By the looks of her moves you'd think she was getting down to some Ace of Base or maybe a little Macklemore?

Wrong and wronger. Just the softest of jazz. Kenny G. wannabe was her musical muse.

And Julia sniffing out every single piece of Dora merchandise. Every single one. The balloons, the beanie Doras, the foaming handwash, the other set of balloons, the plates, the cups, the fruit snacks, the everything. It's really just a deathtrap for fatigued and weary mothers. I only caved on the cookie because the promised free cookies were all gone. Still -- I know I'm a massive sucker. I do.

Bash managed to finish his entire cookie before we made it to the checkout line but still dutifully and honestly plopped the soggy plastic wrapper on the conveyor belt before I noticed. The high school cashier was thrilled to death.

And we came home and I unvested myself to find that the back of the vest was covered in spit up? yogurt? something from the tepid spring. Whatever. You only life once and retroactive humiliation is a virtue and all of that. All of it.

Anyway, no - it hasn't been terrible and there have been no oil spills or bleeding foreheads or maybe I'm speaking too soon. Please let that not be the case, patron of interminable parenting shifts. I decided to be a fun mom last night and let Julia sleep with me. Right. We settled in and between tossing and turning I thought it was a weird coincidence that she was awake and staring at her mom every time I turned to look at her. Finally at 6am, with blood shot eyes she confessed that she hadn't slept at all so I popped her in her bed where she slept all morning. And is now napping again. So - my hopes and dreams of she and Sebastian sharing a room at some point are momentarily dead.

BUT after a week of acting as though he was cutting all four of his wisdoms at once Theo popped his fifth tooth so now he should stop grinding his first four (PLEASE) and he shall be the happiest baby on all of the blocks forever and ever, amen. Right?

Fib with me.

Right!