Lou,

Thanks for the "waytagoes." Your encouragement here this past week or so has been a big part of my motivation. That, and the alphas smacking me over the head with 2-by-6s.

My wife has already begun deleting her text messages, as it looks like she's figured out how to do that (as recently as two weeks ago, she didn't even now HOW TO SEND or READ them on her phone. ahh, the innocent days). But I still have other ways of gauging the level of her involvement with OM.

On Mother's Day, I left her a note on her windshield while she was at the gym and I was out running errands. It was simply my business card, with the words "You are loved" and a smiley face on the back of it, left on her windshield. I wanted to let her know that she had 5 "consequences" at home that loved her.

Last nite, on our way back from S14's baseball game, S14, S10 and I surprised Mrs. Choc. by stopping in the gym, as S10 "wanted to say hi" to her. Of course, Dad46 had suggested to S10, "Hey, how about we go surprise mommy?" I wanted to throw her a little off-balance, wanted to eye up the OM, and wanted him -- and her -- to see the tangible faces of her family.