It’s ironic that yesterday’s message at church was about choosing to rejoice in each day, whether it seems joyful or not, because we had a rough night last night.

Nos. 3 & 4 got into a knock-down-drag-out screaming match in the bathroom over a roll of dental floss. I was so astounded that I wasn’t even sure how to handle it. In retrospect, I didn’t handle it as well as I should have, because I got sucked into the argument. I finally threw away the container of floss and sent them to bed. You would’ve thought I’d thrown away the Crown Jewels, the way No. 4 boohooed. No. 3 accused me of wanting him to get cavities, then cried because I didn’t go straight in there to pat his back, as is our custom. I told them, quite frankly, that I loved them but I was upset because they treated me so disrespectfully and acted so ugly to each other. I said that I would come back (and I did) to pat their backs, but I wanted them to stay in bed and think about their behavior for a few minutes and decide whether or not it was worth it to get in all that trouble over some floss that they didn’t even pay for (it was free from the dentist).

I think I will have to go back to monitoring the bedtime teeth-brushing routine for a while.

*sigh – One of these days, they’ll all grow up to be respectable young men, right?? At least they’ll have clean teeth, Ha! 🙂