Exciting week!

So much has been happening this week, it's hard for me to focus on any of the things I said this blog was going to be about.  So I want to get the exciting things off of my chest so I can settle back down and get to working on those projects and resolutions I said I was going to do.

1.)  I just hired an attorney.  A good one too!  I seriously LOVE him.  I liked him quite a bit after the initial consultation, but now that he is hired, MAN!  he is awesome.  I have no doubt in my mind that he is the right man for this child support/custody/paternity thing I have going on.  If you are in the St. Louis area and need a lawyer for family law, I highly recommend Bruce Eastman of the Eastman Law Firm.  He has very reasonable rates, and a wonderful sarcastic bulldog type of attitude that kept me grinning throughout the appointment and made me feel very confident in my case.

2.)  The kids on my new bus route are not too awful.  (except the middle schoolers, but that is typical, and even they aren't too bad.)  If you wonder about why middle schoolers have such a bad reputation, let me tell you about the safety training meeting I attended this summer hosted by GRAYRAM TACTICAL.  They told us that a study was done about school violence and it was determined that most violence was committed by 12-13 year old boys (middle schoolers!) and it was statistically more likely to happen on a Wednesday in the month of October and was most likely going to involve fist fighting.  But really, Middle school kids do not have the more adult common sense of high school kids, and are not as afraid of getting in trouble as elementary school kids are, and are trying to make a name for themselves and to get attention.  It's like in Middle School they are on a bus for the first time, and they think they are grown, and MAN!  It can be a bad combo.  Luckily, I know they just want structure and are only trying their limits and things will settle down soon enough.

3.)  My husband has never met his BIO dad.  And for years genealogy has been a hobby of mine.  It has always aggravated my COD (that's OCD but with the letters in alphabetical order the way they are supposed to be!)  that half of my kids family tree looks like it was hit by lightening and just stopped growing.

This is really what their family trees look like... a huge chunk is missing!

     So I have been hunting for anything about this man who is my husbands dad.  All I had was his name and that he had been in trouble (read: gone to jail at least once).  I was able to find a birthday for him thru the free court search site here in Missouri.  It's called CASENET and can be found HERE.  Most states have some kind of free judicial lookup of court records somewhere if you are willing to dig.   Anyways, I posted on ANCESTRY.COM a message seeking information about the bio dad (we will call him Gary) parents.  I made it very clear that I was not trying to stalk or harass a person who didn't want to be found or who didn't want contact, and that I really just wanted to know Gary's parents names so that I could flesh out a family tree for the kids.  After a year or more of no responses, I got a reply from Gary's niece.  I was able to call her and get a TON of information.  And she seems like a pretty cool chick on top of it all.  So I am hot on the case of investigating all of the new family members and that whole branch of the family tree.  

4.)  I had an IEP meeting with my stepson's school.  Hopefully now the testing will be able to help us help him better.  I have hated to see him struggling like he does, and I don't want to get angry with him for not trying or whatever if he is physically UNABLE to do so.  Now finally, the school district is on the same page as we are, and we are going to be able to begin the evaluation and referral services.  

5.)  The mother of the Stepson (who is like my real son anyway) has lost custody of her youngest and the only remaining child that she had custody of.  If you are counting that makes 3 kids, 3 different dads, that she has LOST custody and visitation with.  I am slightly worried that she will do something stupid and I will have to explain adult problems to a kid who is just starting to settle in here.  I just don't want her to kill herself or something (overdose!)  I am sure she loves him, but needs to get help so she can effectively parent her child.  I don't want him to lose a mother without having the chance to understand that she isn't doing things to HURT him, she just has an addiction and it isn't his fault.  I think right now he is too young to understand that whole aspect of it, and it troubles me that she may force me into having to try to explain that to him.  I don't want him filled with anger at her or at us for any reason.  It's sad really.  However, I am glad that her youngest child is now away from her, for the child's sake.  

Oh the DRAMA!

So much for resolutions!  I had the best of intentions about this blog, and then life got in the way.  First week back at school, I had my seat crew work to do.  Not a big deal, but still less free time for me.  On a side note, KIDS REALLY TEAR UP SCHOOL BUSSES... I don't know why some kids think they can draw giant pictures of men's genitalia, or write some of the profanity I have seen written on seats.  Or rip, tear, pick, or stab a seat with a pencil 100's of times.  They would never do that crap in their parents cars.

So as soon as that week was over, I had a minor incident with a light pole.  Nothing serious, just a headache of drug testing.  But as soon as that was over, I got served with custody papers from Co-Co's dad.  He is 11 years old and we haven't seen a dime of support from him since he was 2.  He never even put his name on the birth certificate.  I have had an active case open with Child Support Enforcement since 2004.  They have not been able to locate him.  Then WHAMMO!  out of the blue he wants to get 50/50 custody, pay no child support, and have his name put on the birth certificate without a DNA test.

I of course am less than thrilled.  It comes out now that my FAMILY has been hanging out with him and getting free tattoos from him for years now.  But no one could speak up and say where he lived.  And my DS didn't even know that his step dad wasn't his Bio Dad.  That was an interesting conversation to say the least.

So my last 10 days or so have been spent interviewing lawyers to see who I liked and who could do what I want them to do, etc.  Begging my parents to loan me the money for the retainer (of course the putz filed right after we splurged and blew the Emergency Fund on Christmas presents).  And as luck would have it, my parents have an IRS thing that they are dealing with, so they just dropped 10 grand on a tax attorney.  So I am tapped out, but stuck trying to figure out how to come up with a retainer to get some legal representation during all of this.

I have been emotionally drained.  I wonder at times if keeping the putz away from my DS was the right thing to do, but then I am reminded of the physical violence that the relationship had, and although it wasn't directly aimed at my son, it was done in a way that my son was witness to it, or could have been a victim of it as an innocent bystander.  So I know I did the right thing.  Now if I can get a lawyer to help me convince a judge of the same thing.

I also bid for and got a new bus route.  Goodbye 51!  Hello 117!  It's a good bump in hours so that is nice, but it will be all new kids to learn and a whole new area to learn to drive.  I hope that it goes well.

I have briefly thought about some of the tools that I will be using to get my life on track as a grownup.  LOL!  I am a grownup but BOY would it be nice to have a safety net of cash to fall back on, or to be more organized.  One of the things I have seen is the 52 week Money Challenge.

It's a pretty simple concept really... you just start with $1 and add $1 to the total deposit each week... and you make the deposit and not touch it for a whole year and end up saving $1378 in a year.  I know the idea is saving some money each week and this is a funish way to do it.  My only hangup right now is that the December weeks (the last 4 or 5 of the year) you have to depost about $50 a week.  I get paid every other week and with 4 kids living at home now and 1 living at her mother's house it is an expensive holiday season for me.... that's 5 kids Christmas gifts, PLUS 2 birthdays in December alone for me.  I don't think I can save $50 a week.  Or $100 out of every check.

I have seen some people do it backwards, which is easier, but still rough for me right now with the need to pay the lawyers retainer.  I am giving it some thought about how to stagger the payments to work with my bi monthly payday's and my family finances.  I will let you know what kind of savings plan I come up with.  But I think my best bet is going to be working the keep the change savings plans, and the $5 plan, in conjunction with this one.

And as scandalous as it sounds, I would need to do this behind Big Daddy Woo Woo's back.  He is a hoarder and a spendaholic, but in a cheap way.  He will spend a few dollars at every thrift store and garage sale in the neighborhood if he knew we had the 'extra' money somewhere.  Saving money isn't his way.  I know he wants to get a house, or a 2nd vehicle, or even a motorcycle, but I am more on the school of thought that we should have a backup fund and get out of debt before we get MORE debt, expenses, and stuff.  Maybe that is why we are such a good balance with one another.... we both can go to extremes but they are separate extremes.