Things in the house seem to really be settling down. Even skid#2 is managing not to get himself grounded again (he has been ungrounded for 5 days now). Chores are done on time and without reminders, grades have significantly improved especially for skid#1, she currently has A/B honor roll and is working her butt off to keep it until the end of the quarter. Tuesday she called my younger brother for help with a school project that's worth a lot of points. When I got home from work my brother was here teaching her how to use excel to do formulas to help with the project. He stayed for a few hours, helping her figure it out when she got stuck, not doing the work, asking her questions whose answers she gave led to the right way to do things.

Friday the skids started calling me 'mom', they are still doing it, no explanation offered and I am of the opinion not to confront them on it, just let them go. They will either continue, or won't when they don't get a big reaction. Yes, when they call me mom I am responding to them, not ignoring them, I am just not going to demand a reason for the name change.

I am still in contact with my dad and his family, things are smoothing out there too. The initial honeymoon period is wearing off so instead of calling daily we are down to 2-3 times a week, chatting and catching up on whats been going on. I am still seeing a therapist every other week to help wrap my mind around all the changes. An 'annonymous' donor paid off my college student loans. When Fanny Mae sent me a statement saying $0.00 balance I called them, figuring they applied someone else's payment to my account. Nope, my account was paid in full. When I asked DH about it he just got a shit eating grin saying it was the education 'fairy' that did it. I sent the fairy a thank you note, and a gift certificate for him and SM to go out to dinner. My BM did receive the letter I sent her, she replied with a letter of her own, all it said was 'I'm sorry', one of these days I will sit down and talk with her, but I am still not at the point that I can do that without saying something totally hateful.

In a few weeks my inlaws are taking the skids to Disney for 4 days, DH and I both took the time off work, so we are going to have 4 blissful days of no kids, just us. I did warn my siblings and dads family that I will be incommunicado for those days, call only if it is an absolute emergency as we are having a mini second honeymoon at home.

Skid#1 still doesn't have a cell phone due to her dad stomping it into three pieces. She was told she had to pay to replace it then I would unsuspend it. Her mouth/behavior got it broken so she gets to pay for it. She has been trying to find a part time job but there really are not many out there. We have several older couples that live in the neighborhood so she has been doing work for them, vaccuming, dusting, baseboard washing, basically house work that needs to be done that the older ladies just can't do anymore. She has saved up about half of what she needs for a new phone, I told her IF she made A/B honor roll I would pay her for her grades. $5 for every A $3 for every B, $75.00 if she made straight A's. That $75 would finish paying for her phone replacement so she is working hard to get the grades up to straight A's. I really hope she can, I would love for her to see that hard work does really pay.

We do still have moments where teenage immaturity/stupidity/hormones cause small issues, but they are no longer huge issues. Our biggest drama lately was my brother and sister getting into a verbal spat. My brother informed my sister that she needed to pull her head out of her boyfriends a** so she could stop being a sh** head. She has that issue, she gets a new bf and they become the center of her universe, brother is tired of dealing with the fall out since he and she are roomates. I have told her the same thing over the last 5 years, she never listened to me, maybe since her brother is telling her it will have more of an effect, I can hope anyway