Done!

Hooray, no more interviews! No more juggling a crying James while trying to get a reluctant Isaac into pajamas! No more days of not having a car and also not having any excitement of Daddy coming home at the end of the day! Now we just have the task of ranking. I'm slightly disappointed that Blake is leaning towards staying here. I don't get to go home to Utah or any closer (not that St. Louis is that far) or go anywhere new. But Blake is known to be wishy washy on his residency rank list, so we'll see and who knows how the match will go anyway.

Isaac turning into such a big boy. He took Mavala STOP like a champ and has been two weeks thumb-sucking-free. The reviews on Amazon were right and STOP is heads and tails better than Thum. We only had some crying the first night we tried it. I feel like a mean mom to take away part of his identity--he's been sucking his thumb for over two years! But it was getting to be very bad habit--he did it all the time, not only to sleep. He also amazes us every day with things he understands/says. He is going through a word spurt. Some examples:

(putting on backpack) "Let's go airport. Mommy Daddy I-chi plane. Gu-uh's house." (Wants to go back to Utah to Grandma's house.)

"Make coocoos. Baking power?"

"Lightning go house. Tired. Close eyes. Wake up! Go circle big tunnel." (Playing with his new car.)

(looking at Cars jacket) "Lightning, Sawee, powice car, fire, Ma-er, Doc, King, Cheek, Weegi, Stop..."

I really wanted James to be my baby who slept. He is better than Isaac, and I can usually get him to take one, maybe two two-hour naps. Other than that, it's a half hour. It's really hard to get him to go down for the night. Put him down, half hour later pat his back. Works for 10 minutes. Then try feeding him. Then bounce him. Pray he stays down at some point. Since Saturday, he's gotten in the nasty habit of sleeping three hours at night and then getting up every hour. At least before that it was 3-3-2-hold him for an hour. What do I do to create babies like this? If Blake and I weren't Mormon and didn't believe in families, we'd give up. As it is, the number of children we wanted when we were engaged innocents has definitely decreased.

Blake seems to remember this getting better around four months. It did, because I lost all pride and patience and let Isaac cry for two weeks until he learned to sleep. But then he got sick. And then we went on a trip home. And then he got teeth. Up and down for a year. I'm sure in 10 years I will look back on this and realize what a small smidgen of my life this babies at night thing is, but for now I'm tired and discouraged. It's a good thing James gives such good smiles during the day!