Income Withholding Orders

I love them. What's not to love? The money comes out of L.'s paycheck and is deposited into my account. Love it. I know it's coming. And it comes. Reliably. No more wondering if he is going to think I've been "nice" enough to him, no more wondering how much he feels I ought to get, not more arguing over whether or not I should be able to live off what he feels like sending me. love, love, love those withholding order! And the new one ought to be depositing some money in my account tomorrow. Hooray! Here's to hoping it happens!

Money Matters

Our society runs on money. We all have bills to pay... assuming we have moved out of our parents' houses and are on our own. Even then, you probably have a bill or two. I get this. I have a pile of my own bills as I struggle to provide some sort of living for my children. I'm tired of getting a listing of L.'s bills. I don't care how much money you owe and to whom. Just send the dang child support. He hasn't paid it in a month now and is nearly $5000 behind. That's a lot of child support. Do you know what I could do with all that money? Well, I wouldn't constantly have to tell my boys no to everything. That would be nice. My 9 year old wanted 50 cents to buy ice cream at school today. Do I have 50 cents? No. I had to scrounge to find $2 for the dang tooth fairy last night. So, L., sorry to hear about the three traffic citations (tickets) you received while traveling to your new place of residence (giving me the address would be nice- you've lived there for 6 weeks now and you are legally required to do it!), but that's life. You broke the law, you pay the bill. Child support still comes first. It would be nice not to have to panic about paying my bills.

Me, controlling?

L. has told me that I am controlling. Really? I feel like the biggest push over ever. Does it make me controlling if I am trying to do what I feel is in the best interests of my children and he doesn't like it? In that sense, I suppose I am controlling, just not for the purpose he seems to think. I don't really like to be told I am controlling and part of me wants to cave in so I won't be controlling. But then I am being manipulated. I like that even less.

In this instance, he wants to take all the kids for an overnight at his parent's house, an hour and a half from home. L. barely has any contact with the kids any more. He doesn't even call them - I have the kids call him once a week. The younger two barely know who he is. He does not live in the state we do, either. They haven't seen him for six weeks. And this is probably the shortest time in 2 1/2 years they have gone before seeing him again. the older kids will be fine going to his parents house over night. No big deal. I'm concerned about the younger ones. Actually, the 9 year old will also be fine. Not sure about the 6 year old. Really concerned about the 3 year old. Don't think he'll be ok at all.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I have a court order saying that he needs to have two months of every-other-weekend parenting time with the younger three before he gets an overnight so they can get to know him again. He wants them all to go because he will have his parents there to help (he does pretty much nothing to care for the kids) and the three adults can certainly handle six kids, right? But, what if those three adults are not well-known to the younger kids. They don't see much of grandma and grandpa, either. the youngest has been to their house once in 2 1/2 years and not much before that. So he doesn't know the house and he doesn't know the people. Great.