just an 18 year phase, I promise.

Not that it is even kind of possible but it's really probably best for all parties involved (future Grace wanting to take a gander back at some smiley memories, future Patton children that don't want to be horrified and appalled by their behavior as youngsters, and you who might not want to read the true nit and grit of my feelings about mornings like this one) that I only blog when the sweet little lambs are asleep. It's definitely best on days like today when I swear on an imaginary but tangible grave that the kids woke up and before screaming like tortured and caged animals from their cages for their, "MAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!" they vowed to test the whole, "unconditional love" bit of parenthood. Today they tested it hard and they tested it in unison and they ran rightonby and traipsed all over any feelings of obligatory motherly "like" that were lingering after our wake ups and breakfast and breakfast cleanup and the gymnastics meet that is getting them dressed.

 "Mom's gotten two of us dressed without taking a couch-sitting-wall-staring-cleansing-breath of a break. A first!!"

Sebastian's new thing is to lay down next to Theo (who is always sitting) and get him to pull his hair with his grip of death. They both find it hilarious and Julia and I bond over our synchronized stares of, "you both crazy."

The thing about babies and toddlers that I find the most comforting is that everything unpleasant is a phase. Everything. The insanity of sleepless nights with a newborn, crawling (I hate crawling - just walk/run and stop making me worry that you've MacGyvered a cigarette butt from the park floor into your mouth because even I have mothering standards), teething (did I tell you one of Julia's molars bled when it came in? It's rare but it happens and it was awful but ... it's over!), awkward hair (it may have taken poor Julia 3 years to get out of this phase but ... I think we are outish of the woods), clingy dispositions, eating strikes, bathing phobias, and even diapers - those eventually stop being necessary which seems really crazy at this stage of my life but .... it'll happen.

(Someone joked that Theo had an emo haircut this weekend and um .... he's right. Time to find my ziplock of baby locks from first haircuts that I save and treasure and joke alert.)

But.

Always an outlier. I do not know if Julia and Sebastian are ever going to outgrow their fighting stage.

Oh this? This would be their version of harmony.

They love a good brawl. Simon says we should just shut the basement door and let them Hunger Game it to the (proverbial) death but I can't do it. I always assume that Sebastian has finally actually gone through with biting one of Julia's fingers off or that Julia has finally sat on Sebastian's head long enough to almostkill him and I have to go and referee and take toys away and threaten and eventually go through with super early bed times.

But today they independently worked out a little barter (doctor bag for dump truck) and there's a huge gaping hole in the floor where my jaw dropped down to my ankles because that has never happened. So maybe there's a little tiny sprig of hoping that's just biding its time until it pushes up and through the battlefield that is currently Grace's hell. Maybe it will be a phase too.

So please no one go and burst my fatty dream bubble because right now I just think that there is no way on God's sweet green earth that my precious little (emo) Theodore is going to grow up ...

to be a professional gladiator like his siblings ...

no way at all.