And so it begins.

And so it begins. This is a phrase that Jonny and I use often. It pretty much describes things that our children do that we are half rolling our eyes about and half completely delighted that they do because it such the stereotypical child thing to do and we can just see that this is the beginning of years of this thing happening.

For example: Last night Emma got sent to her room (I forget what for, it happens A LOT these days) and she shut her door and turned on her radio and cranked it up really loud. It probably would have been a more effective rebellion if it had been some sort of hard core rock instead of "Disney's Greatest, Volume One." Anyhoosers, Jonny looked at me and started laughing, and I had to say it, "And so it begins. She's a teenager trapped in a 3 year old's body."

Another recent 'And so it begins' moment involved Emma dressing Matthew up in her princess/bride tiara. He laughed all the while and I was getting a pretty good chuckle too - knowing that this would be the first of many times she will do that and imagining his horror when he is old enough to realize what she did to him all that time...