YES I AM ALIVE!! It has been a super busy time for me - at work and at home. I think things are going to cool down alittle (hopefully) Not much exciting happened lately. Same ol' crap - different days. Valentine's day came and went. Steve got me Michael Buble` tickets for his show in April and it's on a Friday night - so we have Grammy and Grandpa lined up already and we are staying in Indy for the night. I am so looking forward to this I can't tell you how much. It will be the first time I have left Piper over night - she will be 20 months old by then. I hope it won't be as hard as I am expecting. But I so need a vacation. And Grammy already has informed us we don't have to be in a hurry to get home the next day - yeah right.... like I won't be!


Piper is yacking alittle more each day. I had a melt down a couple of weeks ago about her not "talking" I was reading in one of my mommy books that had a Developmental Health Watch - that by 18 months they should be saying at least 15 words. OK - well we don't say 15 words - and to me "words" are words everyone can understand. Then back in the chapter that this "health watch" is listed in it says that maybe only you as the parents will be able to understand their words - DUH! Then if that is the case - my child says 450 words!!!! Everybody has told me not to worry about it. So, I moved on to something else to worry about. I really have just been spending the last weeks worrying about everything. One weekend I about lost it all. I was stressed be on belief. I was fretting everything at work and EVERYTHING at home. I was wondering if I admitted myself to the looney bin - how long would they keep me because that would just put me even further behind in all my shit!

Well, with that emotional breakdown..... I have decided to try to do a better job at keeping things up more. I wasn't that bad before but just need to make sure I don't let it get behind. So, now I put each load of laundry away after its done, I clean up shit all the time. But with this as you all have noticed I don't have alot of time for other stuff. So, I will now have to add keeping up to date my blog to my long list of shit.......

Ashley and Riley didn't have school on Friday and they don't have it tomorrow but how stupid they have to make up school days now added on to the end of school. DUH! I would much rather go to school during the crappy months and get out on time once summer hits. Sometimes with these schools you have to wonder what the hell they are thinking. Ashley is messin up on her homework again. Screwing around and getting bad, bad grades on it. Then she digs herself in such a hole that she has to work her butt off to get the honor roll. DUH to her too! I keep telling her to quit messing around because she needs to keep that phone. I told her I tried "my powers" already in the event she would lose it and I was shot down!! Riley is becoming very stubborn with this school work. His teacher has been reporting that he is becoming very lazy and he really needs to practice his times tables. So we have been making sure while he is here that he practices them all the time. Which is leading to many discussions with him - well, he thinks he is discussing something..... but we aren't really giving him an option...... And his spelling grade is not good. That is a no brainer to me..... I don't get that - all it takes is practice (plus I want him to spell better than his dad when he is an adult) So, the rule is he has to bring his spelling list everytime he comes here or he loses TV for one night on our weekend. Well, he got an oops card once already and he has forgot them once and then last week he forgot them again.... but he informed me "I KNOW THEM ALREADY" as I told him - I don't know you know them!! Sucks to be Riley - no TV on this coming Friday!

Steve leaves for LA on Wednesday morning. I am not looking forward to that. No breaks for mom - not even to go to the bathroom alone. Also, I don't like sleeping alone. I now know I have been married to long - because I can't sleep when he isn't in the bed with me. When I got divorced I was like that for awhile but then after 5 years of sleeping alone(most of the time) I got use to it. Well, not anymore. I got to have my man beside me now. Especially since we got to bed together every night. It just sucks when he is gone.

I am excited about his tattoo. I can't wait to see it. Plus hopefully he is going to get some special marking for the 4 of us. It's not my name - I really wouldn't want him to do that but some special marks done in colors we have chosen. That will be kinda cool. I am not real happy that I won't be able to see it for 4 days..... just another reason it sucks that he is going to be gone.

Only good thing about Piper and I being on our own..... we can eat whatever we want for supper!

I have to write about something that was exciting for me - yet sad at the same time.... at Piper's 15 month check up that dr. said I should take her nighttime bottle away from her now. Well, that was almost 3 months ago. I was going to do it over Christmas during my time off. Well, I didn't - I enjoy giving it to her at night and rocking her. So, I will do it - I will. She only took a nighttime bottle. So, over these last months we have been decreasing her ounces she was taking. A couple of weeks ago I thought - what the hell - I am going to give her the milk in a sippy cup and we will work down from there. She drank so that night from the sippy cup - the next night she took even less and by 3 days in - she was down to drinking nothing and I was reading her a story and she would go to bed after that and we don't hear a word from her till morning.... So, mom was dreading doing this because it was going to be hard (I guess hard for mom!) and she was a champ. Now, I am really enjoying reading her a bed time story and then I rock her a short time and lay her down. It's working out great. Now it won't be long to try her potty on the pot!