the chronicles of a recovering perfectionist

Tonight I found something on Lincoln's bed:

It was a piece of notebook paper....

Badcard!! was written on the top.  Under the Exclamation points was a frown. Then:

Name: Lincoln
Midil name: Maxwell
Last name: Bethers
What they were doing: banging on the door when he was sopost to be sleeping.
What will his punishment be: Take Mr. Pokodots (her name for his favorite blanket) away for the day.

It's fun that Mercedes loves to write.  She's creative and likes to write stories.  I especially like her creative spelling.  She's loving school this year.  According to Mercedes, her teacher Ms. Salgado teaches more science than any of the other 3rd grade teachers.  And Mercedes LOVES science.


Cooper spends his days ordering Lincoln around.  He's really becoming a very sweet boy, which is a huge relief to me.  He's outgrown his terrible two's just in time for his brother to take his spot.  He likes to pretend that Lincoln is his horse, and pulls him around the house by his collar.  Once in a while he gets frustrated when Lincoln won't follow his directions.  Cooper likes to say, "Mommy - I'm going to say something very bad... I love you."  and, "Mommy - I'm going to do something bad," and proceeds to give me a kiss.  He's generous with hugs and kisses and "I love yous." 

Lincoln is so attached to having his thumb in his mouth that he has developed an "open bite."  If he keeps it up, he'll need a very painful surgery.  So we've gotten really serious about helping him to break the habit.  We tried the nasty nail polish - and he just sucks it off.  We tried gloves with duck tape, and he uses his teeth to rip the tape off.  Then we switched to gloves with zip ties, and he sucks his thumb.  So we've finally  moved on to mittens (without his thumb in it's spot) with zip ties.  Last night he woke up crying every few minutes, and then at 2am I found him downstairs getting a yogurt out of the fridge.  But it seems like today things are finally sinking in!!!  He hates the mittens so much (I mean - he can't even feed himself with them on) that he took a nap without sucking his thumb!  And then tonight he went to sleep without sucking again.  YAYAYAYAY!!!!  I am celebrating. 

Brent started his first "night shift" on Friday.  He's doing his general medicine rotation, so basically he's responsible for patients staying in/being admitted to the hospital.  I was NOT looking forward to trying to keep the kids quiet all day so he could sleep, but so far he's been able to sleep just fine - even with A LOT of noise.  He leaves for work around 4 pm and gets home just as I'm getting up at 7am. 

I spend most of my time just trying to keep the peace and working to prevent our house from being a TOTAL cesspool.  I'm looking forward to the kids getting to the point of being able to HELP clean up after themselves.  Mercedes is now responsible for unloading the dishwasher, and just that has been huge help!  I loved conference this weekend.  The kids... not so much.  I'm especially excited about the Provo Tabernacle being restored and becoming the second temple in Provo!