Dealing with the Ex: Mr. Deadbeat Dad

When I was married, Mr. DBD counted on me to get money to his other ex for his daughter's child support.  When we separated, his other ex was out of luck.  Me too though.

I live in a county that requires non-custodial parents to have their child support garnished from their wages.  I also was smart enough in the divorce to garnish some other fees, like reimbursement for health insurance.  Normally my state would require the non-custodial parent to carry the health insurance for the child, but since Mr. DBD job hops so much, I decided to carry it myself.

Job hops?  Since we met 17 years ago, there's only been one job that lasted more than a year.  Normally he thinks the "grass is always greener."  He may have the charisma to get a job easily, but lately he's had a hard time getting a job.  That part of the story will wait a bit longer.  Suffice it to say, garnishing child support in a case like this is tough.

Mr. DBD would hide the fact that he had a job.  Eventually the state or I would find out and send paperwork.  By then, most times he'd be gone, on to greener pastures.

Mr. DBD moved out the week of Patrick's first birthday.  There was a two or three month period where he was working some kind of construction and was paid "under the table."  It was good money and I got quite a bit of child support.  Unfortunately, someone found out he wasn't qualified for the job and didn't have the proper certification.  So no more support.

I was working three jobs and paid $800 a month for child care.  Every cent meant the world to me.

I went about three years with maybe two payments.  It was brutal.  But I made it.  I have a certain amount of pride for that!

Some may ask why I didn't throw him in jail.  Well, he couldn't get a job if he was in jail.  This state will also take away the driver's license, but then he couldn't drive to a job.  I need the money, not the satisfaction of putting him behind bars.  (I could dream though!)

And then the sky fell, the bell tolled, and the fat lady sang.

No more child support for a while.  He's indisposed for 8-12 months.  Yes, that's for a future post.  I'm not ready for that yet.

So fast forward to last November.  I got a payment!  Then another.  And another....and I'm still getting payments twice a month.  And I SO need it.  I know it'll end so I'm not counting on it much longer. 

It's been about four years since I took Mr. DBD to court for some other issues.  Mostly I was trying to get permission to move out of state, but I also requested permission to change Patrick's last name to mine.  In return, I offered to write off $20,000 of back support.  I was willing to deal.  I only asked to change Patrick's last name so I could give it up.  It's not like I really wanted to change it.  But Mr. DBD signed the paperwork with nary a word or a squeal.

Twenty thousand dollars

In three years, he'd built up that kind of a balance.  And since then it's back up to about that level I think.  

But at least he's paying. For now.

To the Rescue

My Rheumatoid Arthritis is so bad right now, and the new medicine hasn't kicked in.  I'm hurting and when I'm like this, I get lazy.  (Thus the blog title.)  I don't take pain meds because the only thing I have is Tylenol or Advil/Aleve and they don't work for this kind of ouch.  Plus I don't even think of taking something until hours and hours after I should.

Tomorrow the cleaning ladies are coming, racing to my rescue.  The only bad thing is, I can't pick up before they come.  I know, I know.  "Cleaning for the cleaning ladies."  But I pay by the amount of time they're here, and they may be speedy with the cleaning, but the picking up will throw them for a loop!  I have dishes...oh let's not go there.  Sock patrol was missed by the kid so I must have a dozen socks in my living room.  Don't even ask how they could have accumulated to this point.  I can also have the sheets changed if I leave clean ones out for them.

Then again, looking around, it's not as bad as it used to be before the cleaning ladies.  I just wish they'd do laundry!!  Oh the joy!

But they are going to rescue me.  I am so grateful.


p.s.  The kid got out of bed so I made him pick up the socks.  Woohoo!  Now for the dishes!

Proud Mama

It's sad to say, but I'm so used to Patrick struggling with most things that it took me by surprise the other day when he wrote an essay.

He met his new resource teacher who will work with him for the next two years.  He got the chance to stay after school to help clean her room. 

.......He loves cleaning.  Just not picking up and putting away. But give him a roll of paper towels and cleaner and he'll be busy for an hour!....

When I picked him up from school, I got to meet Mrs. L and she was very friendly.  She gave Patrick a "magic notebook" with a red cover.  She asked that he write in it over the weekend.

 

I thought this would be very tough to do because of his struggles with handwriting and he missed a lot of instruction for writing paragraphs.  I told him Sunday to write at least a page and he could choose whatever topic he wanted.  So he took the book and disappeared for a while. 

 

I almost cried when I saw what he wrote.  It was two pages long about Club Penguin and puffles.  He wrote neatly and with correct punctuation and capitalization.

 

Mrs. L wrote back asking what are puffles, what do they look like, and what colors are they.  She drew a great picture too.  It was a neat way to get him to expand his descriptions of puffles.  Patrick had already written a response to her and drew about 10 pictures of puffles, and they all had different characteristics.

 

The next morning I got up and he was coloring each puffle a different color.

 

So proud of him!! 

 

 

* Mrs. L wrote another response today but he didn't have time to work on another entry because he did homework for about two hours tonight.  That's past my cutoff.  He had only 45 minutes to do as he wished before bed.

Mistakes Moms Make and the ADHD Consequences

I messed up big time.  My poor catastrophic thinker and I are having a hard week.

The day before Mother's Day, we went shopping.  I was looking at aquarium stands at the pet store.  And I got sucked into falling in love with a kitten.  And I took the little guy home.  I mean, really, look at him!

What I had totally overlooked was that I would now have 3 cats, and this one is a long hair.  Long hair.  I hate brushing cats.  And scooping the litter box.  What on earth was I thinking?!  So all weekend I thought about the pros and cons and finally decided Sunday night to take him back to the store.

It. was. heartbreaking.

Patrick had to be pulled out of school because he was sobbing and practically hyperventilating.  I was sobbing when I left work to take the kitty back.

Patrick spent the day with my friend as she was off work for the day.  She took him to a park, where I met them after I got off work.  We were walking back to her house when Patrick started skipping and said he couldn't wait to get home to see the kitten.

Wha?

Um, Patrick, you do remember why you're with Miss D., right?

...how could he have forgotten this?

So of course, the rest of the walk back he was dragging his feet and barely moving.  Then he refused to get out of the car at home.  I counted all the way to TWO before he moved.  When he went into his room to change into his baseball uniform, he jerked on the curtains and bent the brackets.  He was disappointed that I stopped him before he could break it.  He said that he was so mad he wanted to hurt someone.  (That's not typical for him, thank goodness!)  He also, at some point, started biting and/or sucking on his arms just above the wrist.  He has marks several days later.  This especially worries me because I think ahead to a teenager who's raging and self-mutilates. 

The rest of the evening was fairly steady.  He hit a double and a single at baseball so he was feeling pretty good.  When we got home later, he didn't say anything about the kitten.

I, on the other hand, felt the loss the whole evening.

I messed up.

Responsibilities and ADHD

I've struggled to get Patrick to do things without being told...5 or 10 times.  I know that I should get on him much, much sooner, but even I forget about the tasks.  And he can only be told to do one thing at a time.  And I feel like I'm always always telling him to do things.  Or not do things, as the case may be.  I just don't want to harp on it.  I feel like I'm always trying to push him down, to get him to stop moving, stop interrupting, stop goofing off.  It wears on me.

Let me site some examples.  I have him do sock patrol in the living room because somehow some way socks accumulate there.  Tonight he picked them up, but he went right past (over) a sock in the hallway to the bedrooms.  Another time I told him that it's his responsibility to empty the garbage cans in the other rooms.  The bathroom one was overflowing so I told him to empty it and make sure to pick up the garbage on the floor around it.  The second time I told him, he did take the can to the kitchen, but he didn't bring the can bank into the bathroom.  And he didn't pick up the trash on the floor.  So later I told him to get it back in the bathroom.  And for some reason, it ended up in his bedroom.  <sigh>  I told him again to put the can in the bathroom and pick up the garbage around it.  So he brought the can back and put half the garbage from the floor into it.  <sigh>  Please pick up the rest of the garbage and also the garbage on the counter.  Once the garbage on the floor was picked up, how about the stuff on the counter?

I signed Patrick up for piano lessons.  The place we go is fantastic, and the teacher is absolutely wonderful.  But within the first ten minutes of class, I'm so mad for having to motion to him so many times to calm down, to stop it, to listen....I'd have him drop out at the end of the semester if it wasn't such a good thing for him.  We both love it and he's good at it.  (His dad has a boatload of natural talent that I'm hoping Patrick inherited!)  The teacher handles him well by ignoring as much as he can and trying to ease him into the right action.  At home, if I don't sit with him while he practices, he only plays for about 3 minutes.  And then he's done!  Yes, Mom, I practiced it all.  When I sit with him, it's routinely 20 to 30 minutes.

Can you imagine how the homework goes?! I tell him to look at his planner and decide what to do. And on and on until it's time to pack up the backpack.  By then, I just do it. 

I have to be with him constantly if I want his homework done.  His chores.  His piano practice.   There's no self-starter capability being exercised here.  When will it end?  When will he accept the responsibility?!  When-I-teach-him.  When-he's-old-enough.  I've heard that other ADHD kids are like this, but it's making me nutty. 

If anyone has any tips to solve this it would be great.  Yes, I could just follow him around until things are done, but I've done that in his room.  It hasn't worked.