Seriously?

Dear Senior Stupid,

Alright. Enough is enough. How irresponsible can you be? Do you not enjoy your children's company? Do you not want to see them anymore? I can make that happen.

Why is it that you pitched such a fit over my taking the children out of state but yet when you have them you do nothing with them and when they come home you take forever to start paying your child support?

Let's jump back a few years here, shall we? I seem to recall losing my job and becoming a SAHM doing daycare for a couple of friends until I found something else. Your wife found out that the kids were no longer in daycare and pitched a HUGE fit....resulting in hers and mine I handled things but I rose above it and moved on) blogging wars on Myspace. We wound up not getting along AT ALL for a few months because she felt the CS payments ($978.00/mo) were too high for 2 kids. {side note here~ she was quite jealous that you were paying me almost $1000.00 when she was getting NOTHING from her ex for her daughter.} She wanted you and I to lower the payments because you guys couldn't afford your car payment or your house payment and all that other fun stuff. Eventually you and I came to an agreement and lowered it to $700.00/mo. Things were moving right along until not quite 10mo later I asked you about moving out of the state so that My hubby ("to be" at the time) wouldn't have to quit his really good paying job with great insurance to come back to VA to start over. You said "Nope." I said OK.

Well then not even 2 months after that I get a phone call. It was you. You wanted to offer up a proposition. You would allow me to take the children out of the state IF we were to lower the child support. Again. ARE. YOU. KIDDING ME?!! We just lowered it a year ago! Your wife didn't even have enough money to buy your baby new shoes :( OK. Fine. How much does your wife want to lower it to this time? Well it all depends on if you're working or not and need after school care for the boys. If so, we'll pay $425/mo and if not then we'd like to lower it to $325. WHAT?!! Just wait. There's more. You wanted to NOT have to pay for the 2 months (Jul and Aug) that you would have the boys during the summer...which I might add is not even a full 2mo because you get them 2 weeks after school gets out and then give them back 2 weeks prior to school starting for a grand total of 4 weeks. So in all honesty you have them for just over a month.

Well I told you I planned on looking for work so we would go with the $425/mo. Once again we went and filled out ALL of the papers/forms we needed to so that it was all legalized. So I move to WI and leave the boys with you for the summer. We agreed that you would pay me for Aug of that first summer since I got them back that 1st weekend of Aug because I had no idea when school would start and I had to take them for testing and what not to see where they would be placed, grade-wise. You conveniently forgot to bring your checkbook when you met me in OH to drop them off and promised you'd mail me a check that week. Well I never did get a check for that month but your wife remembered to send one for Sept. Stupid me....being the idiot that I am....wrote on the memo line Sept to show that you had paid me for that month. Kind of a security for the both of us in case things got screwed up and I needed to prove anything. What I should have done was written Aug on the line instead. That way I would have gotten my money for that month.

Well as it happens you did EXACTLY what I thought you'd do. You failed to make your payments. I got a second payment in Oct but nothing in Nov or Dec. At that point I had to contact DCSE because it was quite apparent that you, nor your wife, were responsible enough to make sure that your children had what they needed. So after months of faxing forms and documents and everything else to and from DCSE, I finally started getting payments. Then came another move, only this time it was a job transfer. We were going to FL. Well I didn't need your permission for that because well....I didn't.

So we didn't meet in OH for the big switch because my sister was planning on coming down a few days after we got settled to help me unpack and visit. We told you she'd bring them home....to VA...with her when she came back. Unfortunately that didn't happen either. So you made arrangements for them to fly from Birmingham, AL to VA. The downside? I had to make the 10 hr round trip from Tallahassee, to Montgomery to drop them off with your sister. First of all, that was 10 hours...half was with 7 kids...and barely any money for food as I needed all the money I had to ensure that the other 5 kids and I would make it home. Second, just a little FYI, Montgomery is NOT the halfway point between Tallahassee and Huntsville. Not only that but you want me to pay you back for half the airfare because you had to borrow the money from your brother. Nope. Sorry. You have no costs WHAT-SO-EVER for getting them home as I'll be in VA to pick them up. To get them back that summer I told you that I'd be coming to VA to pick them up as I had a family reunion in PA in Aug and I wanted to visit my sister and friends as I'd been gone for over a year and hadn't been able to see anyone. I go to your house to pick them up, like I said I would.

Then for Christmas, it was your turn for that holiday, we met halfway in SC. You stopped on the way, in Richmond and picked up my step daughters since things were so last minute, their mother was unable to take the time off work to bring them. Thank you. That was very kind and I realize you didn't have to. But sadly, that just meant that you didn't have to drive all the way back to SC either because she offered to bring the boys back when she came to get the girls. All you had to do was drive the 4 hours (round trip) to Richmond to drop them off with her.

Jumping ahead to that June...

I bring you the boys a week early so that we could have a vacation before coming home with the girls and we needed to wait for them to be finished with school too. I drive them all the way to Stephens City to my sisters place and stay the weekend with her so that they could spend some time with their cousin. You were supposed to drive all the way out there to pick them up since I had at least driven that far. After all, it was only an hour there and back for you which would be 2 hours. Nope. You couldn't do it. You had some excuse about how the baby....OK 3yr old....was sick and your wife was taking her to urgent care and needed the Durango....which is your only mode of personal transportation. So I was the bigger person and met you in Purcellville. 45. MINUTES. AWAY. I was NOT happy but I did it anyways. Come to find out later....yeah. Your wife never took her to urgent care. Big surprise there.

So at the end of the summer, you were to buy their airfare to fly them home. As it happened, Mu hubby had a friend who wanted to give us their old van. So he took a train with the girls back to Richmond, got the van running and then had you meet him in RICHMOND to drop the boys off and he brought them home. It was your turn for Thanksgiving that year but you passed it up with some excuse about joining the army and things getting messed up. So I kept them and enjoyed BOTH holidays with them.

Jumping ahead again to June of this year, once again we took our vacation once the boys got out of school so that weekend, I attended church there in Sterling and dropped them off at YOUR HOUSE. No need for you to go anywhere. You were even allowed to keep them an extra week at the end of the summer because Thing 1 desperately wanted to spend his birthday with his dad. So I was waiting to hear from you as to whether you were going to fly them home or meet in SC again. You waited until 2 days before they were due home, to call and tell me that you were going to drive them to SC. Thanks for the notice. It's a good thing we weren't already or planning to be out of town that weekend. Oh by the way. My hubby had a side job that he had to reschedule because of your lack of being able to give proper notice.

Jumping ahead to today, it is now the 3rd, yes THIRD, Thursday of Sept which means you have already had 2, yes TWO, paydays for this month yet for some strange reason, I have not received one CS payment. Why is that? Oh maybe it's because you spent too much on you little Labor Day getaway with your wife? Or maybe you used it to go golfing with? I know that's your new favorite thing to do together. Either way, you're wife is posting, about all of the fun things you guys are doing, on FB. The worst part about that is you also went on a camping trip before the boys came up this summer but did you ever do anything fun with them? Oh yeah. You took them to your parents for a weekend so that you and your wife could do some sort of glow-ball golfing tournament. Nice. Yes they enjoyed seeing Nanny and Pa again, but seriously? You can't take them camping? Why should that surprise me though. You never took them for more than a weekend while we lived in VA anyways and even then you were entitled to 2 weeks during the summer. Did you ever take them camping then either? What? You didn't? Hmph. Guess your new family is more important. But, I digress.

Meanwhile your children are now wearing church clothes that are too small because money is so tight for us...between you and the other deadbeat dad not paying CS...that I cannot afford to just go out on a whim right now and purchase them the suits they long to have, just like the other young men at church. I'm failing....miserably...at providing for these young men because I lack the much needed support from their father. How nice it must be to have parents and in laws all with good jobs or decent nest eggs from retirement that you two can live so comfortably and not have to worry about those other kids we hardly ever see. It's sad really. I hope that one day this situation has improved. Until then, have no worries...not that you ever do anyways...as I will continue to be sweet as pie to you and your wife. But know this...the HERE AND NOW situation, is only just getting started.

Sincerely,

Your Childrens Loving Mother