I hope it's not true, but when I was using the child-support calculator today it asked how many nights are the children with the non-custodial parent and I guess each extra night means he can pay less child-support? It seems obvious to me that he's just doing it for that reason, since he doesn't spend much if any time with them that day. It's something he started a few months ago after almost a year of having them one night a week (the first couple months he didn't have them at all.)
I'm hoping I can work out maybe him having them 3 or 4 weekends during mediation which , if he wants to lower his child support then he could show that by spending time with them on the weekends when he actually could spend time with them. D9 has complained several times this past week or 2 about how bored she is at his apt. all day when he's out running/working.
I may look into the teaching at the LD school in our area (btw all the schools like that in FL are similar prices when I called all about $15,000 per child a year and we would have double that right now. I think they would probably give me an employee discount but since they pay their teachers minimum wage (I did look into that at one point) even with a good-sized discount for both, I think it would be way too much. Maybe when at one point I'm down to one child, D9, that would be something we could work out and I'll look into. I live in a town where there are 3 4 yr. colleges graduating Education majors so it's pretty easy for them to get teachers even at the low pay. And I really don't begrudge them the high tuition, they have about 3 kids in a class they say and it almost sounds like homeschooling in a way, they don't do grade levels and have them working at their own individual levels. They have all kids with learning disabilities, and it's supposed to be good (from other parents I've talked to).
I almost forgot to mention that the yellow house owner called me today and offered to rent me the place & sign a lease tomorrow. They seem like really nice people, and it's a quiet house in the country on 3 acres so should be good for the kids. The kids both wanted that house. The only negative I think is that they don't have appliances. No washer & dryer, dishwasher, frig, and the one thing they do have is the stove which looked about 20 years old. In a weird coincidence I'm one of the few renters that actually has her own appliances, but I'm thinking I'll have to get professional movers maybe to move the appliances (do they hook them up too she says hopefully?)
Copied and pasted my last post b/c it locked. I just got back from rehearsal and signing the lease. It took forever. Small town country folk--they seem nice but it took over 2 hours to sign a lease!!! He read it to me and everything. I took the kids b/c S15 hadn't seen it yet. He said it was awesome, so I'm glad about that. I said yep, but you're going to have to help me mow and do the yardwork and there's so much of it! We met the neighbor today also and he's really nice and the landlord lives 3 or 4 houses down so we know most of our neighbors already. It's unbelievably peaceful and quiet there--I've never lived in the country before.
Got home as H was calling me from outside so he prob. just got there I think. I just honked at him twice. Had a smile on my face when I dropped off the kids but didn't say hi or bye, b/c he was prob. upset I didn't have the kids waiting. Not going to stress over that or acknowledge that.
Thanks Puppy for the advice. Good idea to check the local classifieds, b/c a lot of the big-time moving companies are almost an hour away and they charge the whole driving times so that would be almost $200 just for them driving here. Bet they take their time too! So hopefully I can find a smaller local mover. Maybe I'll ask around too. Hope everyone's having a great weekend. It's gorgeous here! Karen
