Well, the Little Darlings have been here less than 24 hours and I already have a pit in my stomach.

I will give props to DH as yesterday he did speak to them about the garbage can incident where those unwrapped feminine hygiene products were found stinking up the bathroom. The 17 year old said, "oh, I just forgot". I can guarantee if it had anything to do with her stupid ass video game she would not have forgotten.

I finally took a good stand yesterday and decided that since DH could not give me a straight answer as to who would be home when, I was not waiting to cooking dinner.  Everyone is used to having dinner on the table when they walk through the door. You should have seen the look on those faces. They were dumbfounded. So DH helped them fix their cup of noodles for dinner.  :-)

He announced to them that I would be going out in the morning and be gone for a few hours. I think the kids are finally starting to catch on too that I am leaving more often and not sticking around when they're here. It's not that I want to be a mean bitty to them but I want them to understand that I'm not going to be some pushover or that person that is here to serve their every whim.  

The middle child, a girl of 14, was complaining as her cup of noodles was being cooked that her phone wasn't working properly anymore. It was almost as if she wanted us to say, "okay we'll get up tomorrow and go to the store and get you a new phone". Thank God DH didn't say that. What he said was, "well you can get up tomorrow morning and pull those weeds up on the hill and start earning some money so that you can go buy your own phone."  Now, the trick will be if he sticks to it as he is famous for caving in to them after a short period of time.  But now, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

So now I shall go prepare for my mani/pedi appointment, run the many errands I've planned, and stop at many stores just to browse. I plan to be gone all morning and most of the afternoon.  The only sad thing is I have to leave my poor puppies behind. Yeah, the kids will play with them occasionally, but as soon as they  get to be where they need something or they may have had an accident (which everyone ignores and I happen across, which pisses me off), they lock them away in their crates when I'm not at home. It's very sad.  DH is the same way.

So I will be counting the hours down until they go home tomorrow.