Shhhhh. See what Santa is giving Bella for Christmas? Isn’t it awesome?

I just bought it for Bella with my paid posts money. It was a fantastic deal. They have these doll houses here for $170 but I got it on eBay for $135. It’s got a bunch of furniture for it– even has an elevator! One present down, 3 to go…

So there’s this little (ummm, big) rancher kid in a few of Austin’s class that is always messing with him. Austin has come home from school almost every single day to tell me about this little turd that is always pulling the chair out from under him when he goes to sit down, teases and taunts him, hits him and makes fun of him. The Principal called me about a month ago to tell me that Austin went to the office with this kid because they were disrupting class by arguing. I got on Austin about it because I want him to pay attention in class and if this kid continues to pester him, he needs to talk to the teacher about it. It continued– the teasing and shoving, the smacking and such. I finally just told Austin that if this kid doesn’t leave him alone, and the teachers are going to shrug it off– He needs to hit back. I didn’t care if the consequences meant that Austin would be suspended, I just don’t want him to be pushed around anymore.

Yesterday the kid came down the hall in between classes and smacked Austin over the head with his binder. Austin turned around and knocked his lights out! The kid and Austin ended up on the ground fighting it out until a bigger kid came to break the fight up.

No I know what you must be thinking… What kind of redneck encourages her child to fight? But I don’t. In this case, I was tired of hearing about Austin constantly getting punked by this kid who obviously needed to have some boundaries set.

So he didn’t get suspended. But hopefully he taught that kid to leave him alone. Austin said he won the fight, but that doesn’t matter as much to me. What matters to me is that he set some boundaries and stuck up for himself. I don’t think fighting is right, but if someone hits me, I’m going to hit them back. I have a few scars to show for that– sometimes it was humbling, but not nearly as much as getting pushed around continuously and never sticking up for myself.

Bullies suck. But they suck less when they get what they give for a change.

Today we went to a little Halloween party at a local Ranch. It was such fun! Bella wore her cowgirl costume, and Noah was a Cookie Monster. We ran, climbed, rolled in the grass, fed animals…

Bella won so many compliments for her costume, which was so fitting for our little ranch town…

And Noah totally lived up to the Cookie Monster name…

We enjoyed the fresh air and a picnic with friends. We painted pumpkins and decorated cookies. We soaked up the last warm days of the year.

Such an awesome day indeed…

Someone? Please? Say a prayer for my tweenager. He is neck deep in some trouble when he gets home…

Let me start by saying, he’s doing chores until he is 18 years old. Period.

Austin is God’s Gift as far as kids go. I’m not just partial, he is that good. Which is the only thing that is going to save him from the Wrath Of Mommy when he gets home after school today. Here’s why:

I’m washing the dishes this morning while I’m baking some snacks for his football team. They are having a end of season party tonight and I made Austin’s favorite: Sausage cheese balls. Suddenly, the phone rings. “Unavailable number” comes up on the screen of my cell phone. Normally I don’t answer these calls because they are telemarketers and, well, why waste my minutes telling them to go piss up a rope? This time, I answered.

“Hi, Mrs. Stepherz, my name is Alex and I am a representative with Alltel. I’m sorry to disturb your morning but it has come to our attention that there is some unusual activity on your account coming from the number ‘555-5555′ (Austin’s number).”

“Yeah, well what kind of unusual activity?”

“Your account is showing extreme usage in text messages, and I understand that you purchased a large text plan for this phone, but the phone is exceeding this package.”

“Ok, what are you saying?”

“Well, in the last 4 weeks, this number has had nearly 4000 text messages for one phone and your package only covers 1000 per phone.”

“And?”

“Bottom line is that your bill is going to reflect this, 20 cents per message beyond that 1000 that is covered. Your bill normally runs you $125 per month. Next month your bill will be $626. That is after we made some generous adjustments because we value your business and want to help you out”

“FLIIPIN-FUGETY-FARGIN-FUCK!”

I called Alltel’s customer service a few minutes later, after I had some time to breath, and begged them to help me out. I begged them to make some kind of further adjustment. They offered me $30 off of the bill, but that’s all they could do. I’m signed into this contract for another 6 months, or I’d leave and try Verizon!

I just bought Austin this phone a little over a month ago because, “eeeghh. I’m cool like that. eeggghh”. I told him I would buy the text package that allowed him 1000 text messages if he didn’t mind me taking it off his allowance. He agreed. Furthermore, I explained to him that he needed to be responsible and keep his messaging below 1000 (which I thought was very reasonable!).

I am absolutely floored. I have to pay the full amount by the end of the first week in December. Perfect timing, huh? Imagine what this ordeal is going to do to Christmas. I don’t normally spend more than $600 on the whole family for Christmas presents, much less $600 on one brat’s child’s cell phone bill! What’s worse is that this is the first Christmas that we don’t have 2 incomes, putting even more of a burden on making that $600 for presents. It’s really unfortunate that the whole family is going to have to make sacrifices because of this. But it is inevitable, because we are on a very fixed income. Not even my paid blogging can help this situation.

And I’m not blaming Austin completely. No, I’m mad and all. But he’s a kid, and I’m the adult. I should have known better. I was a fool for assuming he could handle the responsibility. Foolish, foolish Momma. What was I thinking? I would have never thought that this child could send and receive more than 100 text messages a day! I mean, doesn’t he go to school or something? Seriously, how does he spend 8 hours in school and still have time to send and receive over 100 text messages a day, y’all!? WTF? WHAT THE FUCK? Sorry. I had to do that. Therapy. Breathing helps. Cursing cures.

Anyways… I just asked him a few weeks ago if he was staying below his 1000, and he promised he was. I asked him how he knew and he said, “I keep count, my cell phone tells me. I don’t get or receive more than 20 or 30 a day.”

Yeah, right.

Ugghhhhh. Gosh, can I get a vacation now? Have I earned one yet?

Also, does anyone want a cell phone? Austin’s is available to the highest bidder…