You know what??? It's gonna be okay....

You know what? As you all know I have three kids. They are all very different and I love it! I am not at all one of those moms that needs everything to be perfect all the time. I don't have to have everything in place with all four of us before we walk out the door in the morning. I like to call it laid back, but some people may not think it's as positive as that.

The reason I thought of this is because this morning I did something with my son that is not very politically correct. Nathan, my soon to be 7 year old still sucks his thumb. When Taylor was a baby she took a pacifier and she was addicted to it. She didn't stop taking her "bippy" until she was about 19 months old when her Grammy taught me a trick to cut a hole in the bippy so when she sucked on it it wouldn't feel right and she wouldn't want it. It worked like a charm! She threw all her bippies away herself and I didn't have to do a thing (except cut a couple of holes). But when Nathan was born I was right in the middle of my "anti-bippy" stage. Taylor was 17 months old and going strong with her bippy and I just didn't want to go through that with him. So I din't allow him to have one...so he began to suck his thumb. Hindsight's 20/20 people don't judge me!!! I know now looking back that this was the worst thing I could have let him start doing. You can't cut a hole in his thumb and let him throw it away...what was I thinking? I wasn't thinking is the answer. If I had thought about it I would have recalled how my brother had the hardest time with the thumb sucking thing. I think he finally kicked the habit when he was about 8. Sorry Matt you know it's true!!! But Nathan looked so cute as a baby doing it, all curled up on my lap with his blanket. Okay you get the picture, I was a sucker. So here we are 7 years later.

After work last night I went to Walmart and got a finger brace. I put it on his thumb and I'm telling you that thing is not coming off until he finds something more productive to do with his thumb than suck it all day and night. Think of all the things he's missing out on...there's thumb wrestling, giving thumb's up for encouragement, they're good for twiddling when you're bored...the possibilities are endless! The unethical part of this is coming up, he wanted to know what he would tell his friends about why his thumb was in this big silver brace and I said what any good red blooded American mother would say...LIE! Tell them you fell off your scooter and broke it, tell them you fell out of bed, tell them you cut it with scissors, got stitches, I don't care! As long as that thumb is in that brace and out of your mouth I'm good with little white lies. Justin just laughed at me and rolled his eyes and off to school they all went.

So like I said I am no longer worried about doing things the "right way"! And I would argue that once anyone has three little kids reaches this same point I'm at at some point or another. Am I right Aunt LeAnn? Sorry to put you on the spot but you're the only person I know who has had three little kids at the same time :). I took the kids to CiCi's the other night for their school night and I let Nicholas wear the cowboy dress up outfit that their Aunt gave Nathan for his bday. It is too big for him, but I don't care. He wore it, chaps and all, and he loved it! I'm not your average Mom I guess but really is there a normal when it comes to parenting? Let your kids wear what they want to wear every once in a while, let them potty train when they're ready (trust me they will let you know), so what if they're in their crib longer than you thought they were supposed to be. Who makes those rules anyway? I chose to be wild and crazy and let my kids have some choices....and by the way I don't care what your Mom or in my case Grandmother say, you CANNOT have a child fully potty trained by the time they are one!!! LIARS!!!