Unleashed

The teenager was officially unleashed over here at our house. Ashley brought home straight A's on her report card again so we wanted to reward her for all of her hard work and effort. She never fails to make us proud, always helps out with her younger brother and Chloe, treats everyone with kindness and respect and does what is asked of her. (OK, making her bed every morning hasn't stuck yet, but we're working on it.) To sum it all up, she makes us feel like a success in the parenting department.

So, after dinner last night we took the kids with us to Verizon so Bret could upgrade his cell phone. While there, we added a text messaging plan to Ashley's phone. She's been begging since she got the thing in February for her birthday and it was only a matter of time anyway.

She now gets unlimited "in" texting and 500 non-Verizon customer text messages a month. Thankfully, it seems all of her friends use Verizon. And thanks to her Internet savvy parents, we can monitor her usage online so that she doesn't go over.

Speaking of monitoring usage. I checked her usage online just now. I figured she probably had racked up maybe 50 texts or so in the past 24 hours. *Gulp*. Are you ready for this? It wasn't 50. Not even close. Try 278! OMG! 278! In 24 hours! (That was me you just heard hitting the floor, passed out cold.) Thank God those texts are the unlimited ones.

OK, it's been about 10 or 15 more minutes now. Let's check the stats again. 309 - and she's still at it back there in her room. I think it may be time to shut her down for the night.