The good and the bad

First the good. We met Missy and her kids at the park today. The boys totally hit it off and before we ever pulled away from the curb, C was asking when we could see them again. Flynn wasn't quite so sure about Lizzie. I think her reputation precedes her LOL. Missy was great. Lots of fun to talk to and hang out with :)

Now on to the bad. I've posted before about C's "friend" J and how is just mean to C all the time. It started when C wanted to play his games all the time and J didn't like that so he quit playing with him. We told C that he can't force to play with him and gave him his options which were A)play by yourself B)play what the kids you want to play with are playing C)find someone else to play with that will play what you want. Despite my encouraging otherwise (I lean toward option C, myself) he decided to start playing what the other kids were playing. They still refused to play with him or sit with him at lunch or interact with him in anyway that didn't involve running from him and screaming that they didn't want to play with him. For after school, C found some other kids that he enjoyed playing with and things seemed to be ok for awhile. Then they went all to hell again. J has been just lfat out mean to C for the last week and I'm completely fed up with it. If C did that to someone and I knew about it, he would be in so much trouble he wouldn't even be able to believe it. His mom doesn't act like that so I just don't understand what is going on and why she isn't doing something more about it.

Well today, C was hanging on the monkey bar thing they were all (2 or 3 other kids beside those 2) climbing on and said something (no idea what since I was too far away to hear) to J and J screamed at him "leave me alone, I hate you!" and then grabbed him and started pulling on him. We left, C in tears, and I guess they left too. I have FREAKING had it. When we got in the car, I told him in no uncertain terms he is not allowed to play with J anymore, at all. If that means that we don't stay and play in the afternoons, then so be it. I also don't want them playing together at school anymore. I hate to be this way, but I told C if I caught them playing together anymore, he would get in trouble. He CAN NOT allow himself to be treated like that. I simply won't stand for it. I told him that if J wants to play anything that C is playing, C is to tell him that he isn't allowed to play with him anymore because he is mean and rude and that C doesn't need friends like that. I also told him that if Josh grabs him anymore that he should scream as loud as he can "get away from me, don't touch me" and then he has my permission to hit him. Then he can have the VP call me and I'll explain to him that I gave him permission to do it. I've already emailed their teacher and the VP about the situation but I don't want him in a lot of trouble for doing what his mom (the ultimate authority in his universe) told him to do.

Hopefully, he'll actually listen and J will get the picture.


In other good news, dh picked his schedule for work and he gets Sundays off all summer. He hasn't had a regular weekend day off since before Lizzie was born.

Child support update

Our local office says they have no record of any payments since Nov 2006. They suggested we call the payroll person at work and verify they were sending the payments to the right place and with the right number. He called. She is. Her suggestion was to call the main office and see what they say. He called and they said, they show that payments are current as of Nov 5th 2007. They suggested calling CO and seeing what the problem is on their end. He did and was told (after waiting most of the day for a return call) that he needed to call someone else about the accounts being frozen. He did and was told that they showed he was current as well, but they couldn't do anything about the notice once it had been sent. Once they get the paperwork that we are supposed to send, they can unfreeze the account. Even though they admit that he is current, they can't do anything to correct their error until we send proof that their files are correct. SO frustrating.

A couple of good things have come out of this though. We actually have the name of a case worker in CO that we can call when they do stupid crap like this. He said this is also the first time that he has called about an issue that everyone that he has talked to hasn't treated him like a lying deadbeat.

Going forward, we were able to stop his direct deposit so this own't tie up all our money for the next 2 weeks. When he gets paid, I'm going to have him sign the check over to me and then I'm going to go to our other bank (where I have an account in my name alone) and cash it. Then I'm going to open a new checking account in my name alone. He will have to change his direct deposit to that account and I'll switch all of our bill pays over to that. I intend to keep the original account open and once this mess is resolved, I'll transfer money into it every pay period to cover his gas and what have you. That way, he still has access to money, without having to worry about another error tying up money for days or weeks. We were fortunate this time that the problem occurred at the end of a pay period, when there wasn't as much money in the account.