and so I feel like a failure of a mother. He is just so capable. The man can do anything, or should I say everything–all at one time. And I love him for it. I have the easiest life. I don’t have to do anything and it gets done anyway, and he showers me with aprreciation as if I did do it (you know, whatever “it” is at the moment– laundry or dishes or super-human acts of calming the screaming Jonah etc. etc. etc.).

So, last night he went to the temple and I was left in charge of bedtime. Which I’m sure any decent mother is expert at, but me? No. Brenna and Jonah were running wildly, flipping lightswitches while I chased them and stuffed toothbrushes into their mouths, all the while being serenaded by the blood curdling screams of a hungry baby. I didn’t read the stories right, or sing the songs right, or fill the sippy cups up with the right temperature of water… It took me over an hour to do what Barry does in 15 minutes. But the kids were asleep when he got home. And Jonah was miraculously asleep in bed, even though he spent about 20 minutes screaming on the floor by the door because he wanted the little pink cup–which Brenna asked for first.

So Barry came home from work early today so that I could take a nap because I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder from being left alone with my own children for ONE NIGHT.

I’m blaming the headaches on the horrible metal contraptions and rubber bands in my mouth.

I had a friend studying to be an orthodontist that said pure-bred people have the best teeth. Our problem here in America is that we’re a bunch of muts, which has led to our need for torturing-teeth-straighteners (aka. orthodontists). See, what happens is that we get English teeth in a Swedish body, or worse yet, Swiss teeth in a French skull. Nordic teeth in a Japanese frame is especially bad. But, when you’re Native American or Chinese or Tongan through and through way back to Adam–it’s really unlikely that your mouth will be full of teeth sticking out every which way with unsightly gaps and overlaps. I think the logic holds true. When was the last time you looked through a National Geographic magazine featuring native Aftrican tribes and saw a bunch of people in loin cloths with horribly crooked teeth? Never!! They smile big beautiful smiles, not only because they are only wearing loin cloths, but because they have perfect white pure-bred teeth.

Well, I’m not pure-bred. Which is okay. I’m pretty happy with the Danish, English, German etc. etc. mixture I got…except for the teeth.

I went to the teeth-straightening-torturer today.