wimom, I think you are a very caring person toward your stepkid, and I think you only want the best for her. BUt try to think about how I , and probably other people read your story. Your daughter is thirteen. She is at the age where she is faced with pressure every day, from all kinds of sources. Her mom has , in your words, been pressuring her . Her mom has two phone calls a week, and I think it is probably a testimony to how difficult things must be between the two households, that the calls are court ordered. In most houses , kids of divorce at 13 can freely talk to either parent, as long as they want, as often as they want. Now, the situation. You were out. Daughter was on phone with her mother, for twice the usual time. When you came home, your other children ratted her out and told you. She didnt. That says to me she wasnt particulary bothered about it at the time. The first thing your husband did was fly to the computer and complain to the ex. NOw, what I read from this is ( please dont be offended) a) your husband, and maybe you, are as easy to annoy as th emom is b) your daughter feels caught in the middle because she either is too weak to set any boundaries ( which is dangerous as a teenager), OR , she feels very strongly that you disapprove of her talking to her mother, and she feels compelled to either hide it from you, or act indifferent in front of you because she senses your disapproval. In my opinion, she really does feel caught between a rock and a hard place. You arent doing yoru stepdaughter any favours to be flying to her supposed defence at her age. You are perpetuating the problem with mom, and not allowing your stepchild to grow by letting her handle it herself. She will never learn to have the self confidence to handle a tough situation if you dont let her. I really think its time for you and your husband to stop the war...there will be no fight if one side just doesnt play. Let the mom be an idiot if she wants to , but you and your husband dont have to fall into it as well. Your daughter is the one who is suffering here, because she loves BOTH her parents, and she doesnt want to displease either of them. You will probably find that your stepdaughter will , after floundering a bit, learn to handle this all on her own. Let her grow, and do the thing that is appropriate for her age. She isnt a baby. Trust her enough to let her figure it out on her own. Hands off the phone communication, thats between your daughter and her mother. BUt make sure you dont show your disapproval in an attempt to influence the stepkid. THats just as bad as what her mom does by pressuring her...its still pressure, albeit a different kind. Good luck

For the latter sort where you pick up to discover you're on hold, I deal with them efficiently. When their person comes onto the line 3-10 seconds later, I just tell them that if they don't have the courtesy to be on the line when I answer the phone, they cannot expect me to have the courtesy to listen to them now that they are ready. I used to work in a call centre so I am generally pretty easy going when it comes to telesurveyors. Telemarketers, on the other hand, get short shift from me. Especially when the call centre is automated. I try to bear in mind that there's some poor bugger on the other end of the phone just trying to earn money like I was, possibly paying their way through Uni or some other "higher goal" sort of scenario but when I pick up the phone and find myself in a holding pattern with a machine, I cannot be bothered with niceties.

It's a feature you enable in your settings named "wi-fi calling." Your phone functions just like normally, making or receiving calls. But Instead of the calls occurring using the wireless signal of your cell phone carrier, they occur over your Internet connection. You need the right phone and you need to enable the feature in your settings. Other than that, you wouldn't know the difference since it's business as usual and there are no extra things to do when placing or receiving calls. When I am at home, my phone automatically picks up my router and all calls occur over the Internet. This is nice if you are limited to a certain number of minutes a month on your wireless plan, since calls over the Internet don't count against your plan. Not all phones can do this. For example, you need the newest iPhone (6 or 6s), or a pretty new Android model. And a few carriers do not yet make this available to their customers regardless of what phone they have. What phone do you have and who is your carrier?

tish - I am not in an open primary state. Just a state that is assumed to go Democrat so no point in anyone spending money here. I do get calls for non-presidential campaigns. We got a ridiculous number of calls a few years ago when we had a high profile congressional election. It was truly annoying so I understand how those of you in first primary/swing states must feel. My experiences with campaigning and where the information comes from. I worked for the Ramsey Clark senatorial campaign (yes, I'm pretty old) when I was in college. I had a copy of the voter registration roles for my area and I sent literature to everyone registered as a Democrat or independent. (How old school and small budget does that sound? lol) I did one session of calling for candidate Obama. We called registered Democrats. The point of it was more to get out the vote rather than change minds. I didn't do it again because the campaign office didn't have enough phones so I had to use my mobile phone. I got calls afterwards from people who hadn't answered their phones. "Saw you on caller ID, what did you call about?" calls. We had been advised not to leave messages but in retrospect maybe we should have. Hang in there everyone!