I was dying for Gutsy to turn seven. Eager. Excited. Stoked.

As the legends go, seven is the magical age of reasoning. Children are struck by the almighty hand of common sense, thus propelling them into a new behaviour where they - get this - stop and think about what they're about to do. They call to memory previous situations and make an educated guess as to what might happen should they choose door number 1 or door number 2.

For example, Gutsy may, upon careful consideration, not scream at the top of his lungs at one of his his brothers if he sees no reason behind doing so, because it never got him anywhere before. He may choose not to throw himself on the floor as soon as the word "no" parts from my lips, because it is not reasonable to do so.

See where I'm going with this?

Anyway, in the last few weeks we've noticed a change in our normally quick-to-react middle gremlin. He yells less, and his claws only come halfway out most of the time. He has this new ability to retract them before it gets nasty. It's a beautiful sight.

So, you can see why I'm not terribly upset that he's getting older. I mean, I still think it's all happening too fast, but the selfish side of The Maven likes that things are beginning to calm down with the Gutster. Intrepid, who was by far our most aggressive unpredictable downright terrifying spirited little pod-dweller, really calmed down around the age of seven. He became the child everyone tells me they envy: Empathetic, funny, outgoing, creative, intelligent - all the things his mother is. In fact, he is such an amazing kid that I am not as afraid of his fast-approaching teen years as I thought I would be.

Yes, seven is a good age. A magical age. The well-deserved eye in the proverbial parental hurricane. I traipsed around the living room last night, delivering joy and chips and pizza to all the other seven-ish-year-olds at Gutsy's party, and quietly celebrating my own personal victory of surviving the first seven years.

Then, today, Spawnling threw a tantrum like I had never seen him throw. He body surfed on the floor, turned 11 shades of red and purple while screaming at us, randomly slapped Gutsy upside the head, called me stupid about 30 times, had three consecutive time-outs, and launched a toy guitar across the kitchen. I finally calmed him down with two library books - one being about underwear. Nothing gets him giggling like underwear.

Spawnling just turned three. We could very well see four more years of this.

Four.

More.

Years.

Are there enough library books in the world for four more years of this?

Irony, I so hate your face.