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Author Archives: Jen

This got Katie grounded.

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I had asked her to make sure the bathroom was picked up for the housekeepers. She said it was done. So imagine my surprise when I walked by this morning and saw this disaster.

And I was even more shocked when I looked under the sink (I was shoving stuff in there to quickly get it out of the way).

And these disgusting glasses filled with who knows what.

And this is where she thought it was appropriate to put dishes.

There was more like this but you get the idea.

UGHHH.

Trick or Treating

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Owen didn’t decide until the day before that he wanted to go trick or treating so his choice of costumes was limited… I didn’t even get a picture of Katie because so much was going on.

Olive loved everyone! She would wait patiently and wouldn’t bark or go crazy.

But she loved the attention.

Of course, Katie refused to wear her wig at the last minute, so Tom put it on instead. It looked epic.

And he and Anna made a cute couple.

I was innocently checking her phone.

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Guess who just lost her phone for a good long time?

Yes, that’s her on TikTok.

I had to use her phone to figure out something with her watch and she was out of space so I was going to delete some photos/videos…and found this. And then a whole slew of videos.

UMMMMM WHAAAAAAAAT?!

I had TikTok locked down. I had no idea how she did this. Originally I didn’t even think to look at the time stamps on her phone…but they were last night between 10-11:15. After bedtime.

Ugh.

To start with, she knows TikTok isn’t allowed, let alone her having her own account. Even legally, you have to be 13. But there she was, with a bunch of videos uploaded!

UGH.

And a few of them were completely inappropriate.

UGHHH.

And I couldn’t even figure out how to delete her account—I had to prove I was her by verifying her email (which I had access to) but it wasn’t working.

UGHHHHH.

Then I noticed another new account she shouldn’t have had. And a bunch of new apps I don’t remember her asking for.

It was a long and frustrating day. But she’s lucky I had all day to calm down while she was at school…because I was LIVID.

So Tom was home and we presented a united force. During our conversation, she finally told us how she was able to do it. Are you ready? When I was gone to Ohio, Owen snagged Tom’s phone (because he hadn’t changed his password after the last incident) to log into the app we use to control their phones and give himself more time allowance—and Katie said she wanted stuff, too, so they changed all sorts of permissions. She lost her devices for a month. And I deleted almost every app off her phone.

So then we called Owen down. And after a bit, he admitted that he did that. We were really surprised and upset because he got in trouble for this exact thing previously. So, since it was his second offense, he lost devices for two months. Katie wasn’t smart enough to keep her mouth shut and said well she did it before, too…so fine, we increased her one month to two. So both have lost their devices for two months (phones, ipads, Xbox).

Technology and social media is a nightmare. We were doing the right things with programs meant to help us and protect them but they got around it. Good times.

To Owen’s credit, he REALLY handled it all well. Tom and I had anticipated Owen losing his crap because this was the biggest punishment he’s received… but he was actually amazing! You could obviously tell he was disappointed, but he didn’t lose his cool at all, stayed calm, didn’t try to hurt himself, didn’t storm off or cry… We were both surprised and thrilled.

Katie, on the other hand, ended up fighting and arguing and yelling and crying and slamming her door. After about an hour she was okay.

I don’t like this part of parenting.

This is what dogsitting looks like.

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Anna and David went to New York so we got their two dogs—Olive’s bestie, Honey, and Kai. Unfortunately you can’t hear Kai barking like an asshole at everything—we had to keep the front door shut or he barked like a madman at every little thing. He even nosed the side curtains out of the way in order to look and bark. And all his barking made both other dogs bark. Good times! At least Olive was kept busy playing with Honey… Honey is so good with her.