Out of the mouths of babes ...

This age is great in some ways, difficult in others. As Audrey gets older and is able to do more, I don't have to wait on her hand and foot. On the other hand, with this new independence comes more defiance, more of a desire to express her willpower. Overall, I have a great kid. Sweet, usually well behaved, polite, calm. But occasionally the sass comes out, or the temper tantrums over something ridiculous. I have to remind myself to take a deep breath, be patient, and remember that this will pass. (And hopefully not come back in full force in her teenage years.)

 

I make it easier by reminding myself of all the times she cracks me up with the ridiculous stuff that comes out of her mouth.

Me: "What are you doing?"
Audrey: "Nothing."
Me: "I was talking to the dog."
Audrey: "Oh. Well, she can't talk."

Audrey: "I don't like going to sleep."
Me: "Why?"
Audrey: "Cause I just wanna be crazy."

Her aunt: "Audrey you have to eat your dinner so your grow up to be strong and healthy."
Audrey: "Are you going to grow up to be strong and healthy?"
Aunt: "Well I'm pretty much done growing."
Audrey: "So why do you still eat food?"

Audrey: "Do you love me?"
Me: "Of course."
Audrey: "Well if you love me, I get to sleep in your room."
(She's always trying to weasel her way into sleeping in my room)

*Very excited*
Audrey: "Guess what Uncle James! Jack* pooped his pants today at preschool!! I smelled it. Do you like poop things?"
*changed the kids name just in case ...

Puppy Update

 

Maddy the Guard Dog

 



A Pic from the Breeder at ~8 weeks old - She already looks different!

I was wary of getting a dog for a long time, and rightfully so. This dog is adorable, sweet, funny ... and a headache. I knew getting a puppy wouldn't be easy. We got our cat when he was still a kitten but he picked up on the litterbox thing immediately, and with the exception of a UTI that threw things out of loop for awhile, has been a great cat.

Potty training with Maddy has been slow moving. We are using the wee wee pads and a crate, but it didn't seem to be working, so I bought one of those folding pens that can be configured as small as you want, in any shape you want. I read that this is great for "passive training," when you can't keep your eye on the dog every second to actually move them to a pad when you see them sniffing around. I covered the whole floor area of the pen with pads, and then praise her everytime I see her going to the bathroom, because she has no choice but to go on the pads. Then I started cutting down the number of pads in the pen. It seems to have helped. She has far less accidents when she's roaming free around the apartment, as long as we have a couple pads strategically placed.

"Far less accidents" doesn't mean "no accidents" though. It just means 1 miss for every 5 successes, as opposed to 1 succcess for every 5 misses, which had been the case for the first week or so. She's still crated at night, which is frustrating, because she starts crying/barking as early as 5:30 in the morning. I tried attaching the pen to the crate, so the crate opened into the pen, and put pads in the pen. I left the crate open so she could sleep in it, and come out and have a little more space when she wanted. This didn't help. Not only did she still start crying for attention at 6 in the morning, but she also shredded her pad and then went on the floor because she no longer had a pad to use. That was a fun mess to clean up.

There are other little puppy behaviors we're working on - the nipping, jumping on people, playing in her water bowl and making a big mess. I know these and the potty training will all be resolved soon (eventually?), and I can't wait.

Even though we started the potty training inside, she still goes for walks, to get fresh air, exercise and meet people so she's not shy/aggressive later. She still gets so much attention - people stop to say hi, pet her, even take her picture. Sometimes she just stops for no reason and lays down on the sidewalk. Ooook, Maddy.

Bum.

She's still trying hard to befriend the cat. Or maybe just herd him. (Corgis are herding dogs.) Either way, he isn't having it. Max has a lot of patience with her, and usually just walks away or hisses at Maddy when she's getting on his nerves, but the other day I guess she nipped at him one too many times and got a swat on the face.

 

The little scratch on her nose ... poor baby.

She's adorable, so as crazy as she drives me, the little doggy smile or her silly little legs or her big ears always win me over.

I still can't wait till she's outgrown the puppy stage though.

Oh, New York

The View from New Jersey

 

This article from Buzzfeed explains some of my feelings about New York lately. Most of the time, I love living in NYC. Sometimes, though, I'm ready for a change of scenery. Lately, the man friend and I have been discussing (finally!) combining households, but he doesn't want to live in New York. The compromise we have come up with is New Jersey - somewhere where we can live in an actual house with some sort of outdoor space, but still commuting distance for me.

Although this will still be in close vicinity to Manhattan, I can't help but feel hesitant. The biggest reason, of course, being my apartment. My apartment is rent stabilized, and is a needle in a haystack find. It's inexpensive by New York standards, and big (also by New York standards ...). It's in an amazing neighborhood, zoned for an excellent public school. There are, of course, drawbacks though. Although I don't have any neighbors to the left or right of me (it's a narrow building, so only one apartment in the front and one in the rear on each floor), I still have to be mindful of the upstairs and downstairs neighbors. This was particularly stressful when Audrey was a baby, and it's stressful now with a puppy who starts yapping for attention at 6am. Also, it's a no-frills building. No amenities. No outdoor space, unless you count the fire escape. Ha. Third floor walk up. I have to schlep my laundry three blocks. The building is very safe - quiet, mostly family of the owners who have lived in the building most of their lives. They are very strict about giving out keys, which is great in that it adds to the secure feeling of the building, but is sometimes a pain. I could never give keys to a sitter or a boyfriend. It's old, and some rooms are in desperate need of a makeover. And yet, I know I'll never find a better deal should I give it up.

As for New York itself - I mean, it's New York. It's crazy, busy, packed to the brim with stuff to see and do and eat, but also with tourists. I love that public transportation is so easy to use, but hate that I don't have a car sometimes - trips out of the city, grocery shopping, etc. I love that I can have any I want delivered to my front door, but wish I could just hop in a car and run to Target or something. I love all there is to see and do and explore here, but sometimes wish I could just open my back door and kick back in a chair with a cup of coffee (or wine...) while Audrey runs around in our yard.

Some random finds from around New York:

The Lego Men in Seal Park



This fun find in some random park I found walking around one day

The Piano under the Brooklyn Bridge

I know there is more to the world than New York. I don't know why I feel so strongly that this is my home. Maybe there's some psychological reason to be found related to my childhood in the Poconos, surrounded by New York transplants and "summer kids" (families that lived in New York but kept summer homes in the Poconos). I remember 15 year old me telling my boss that I wanted to go to Columbia. I later opted for NYU instead, but NYU was the only school I applied to.

My aunt lived in my apartment before me, for over 20 years. She also moved to New York for college and never left. She was diagnosed with MS as an adult, and slowly lost the ability to walk, but held on to the third floor walk up apartment for as long as possible. I don't want to hold on because I feel like I can't let go of an apartment. I can probably sublease it, but only for so long. You can't cross the ocean unless you have courage to lose sight of the shore, though, right? Probably too melodramatic for a post about giving up my apartment in order to try out living in New Jersey.

If I move, and I regret it, can I come home again? Or will New York no longer feel like home? I fantasize about a dishwasher and a second bathroom and a yard and a parking space, but don't want to give up being able to go no further than a few blocks for almost anything, to have Indian, Chinese, Thai, Italian, you name it - all within a 3-4 block radius, being a short train ride away from gorgeous parks, amazing museums, finding the random little oddities around our neighborhood. So basically, what I'm saying, is I need to make millions of dollars for the life I want in New York, but it ain't happening, at least not in the near future. So do I sacrifice the space and the comforts at home for New York, or sacrifice New York for the house?

I'm aware this post sounds like the ramblings of a whiny schizophrenic. Hopefully someday I'll be able to look back at this and laugh, either from the comfort of my large home in Weehawken, or my high rise luxury apartment on the Upper West Side.

Belated Bits of our Weekend



FOR NARNIA!!



I didn't plan on doing a Bits of Our Weekend post this week, because we didn't do much this weekend, but for continuity's sake - why not?

 

Yea, IDK why she insisted on wearing this get up out, but I just rolled with it.

On Saturday, we headed over to Chelsea Piers. I wanted to check out their birthday party situation and the gymnastics classes. Those are two expensive things that Audrey very badly wants this year, and I don't want to have to tell her no, so we will see how things pan out. Birthday parties in New York ... ugh. Most people's apartments are too small to host a party. If you have a Spring/Summer/Early Fall baby - great, set up shop in a park, order a few pizzas and call it a day. But Audrey's birthday is in November, which means I need to find something indoors. And everything indoors expects your child's weight in gold as payment. I'm seriously considering shelling out for this though, for a few reasons. First, I didn't do it last year. She was new at her school, and I wasn't sure enough kids would show up for it to be worth the expense. But this will be her second year at the school, and her last year with this group of kids. Second, this will be her birthday present. I will do something small for her to open the morning of her birthday, but I won't go crazy. And lastly, I don't plan on doing it every year. Next November, she will be in a new school again, with all new kids. So I will probably skip it again and just make the big birthday party an every other year thing till she's old enough to just have sleepovers with a couple friends or something. Or till we throw in the towel on New York ...

 

Audrey's first experience with face painting - she loved it.

 

Speaking of Birthday parties, Audrey had two this weekend. One on Saturday and one on Sunday. An entire weekend of birthday parties. Awesome for Audrey, not so much for me. One of the invitations said "No presents necessary." Perfect. The other one didn't, but I totally spaced on buying a present, which meant a last minute effort. Literally last minute - the party started at 3, and I remembered we needed a present at 2:40, as we were walking out the door. I ran back inside and grabbed a gift bag and some tissue paper I happened to have laying around from my own birthday a couple weeks ago and we went to the closest place I could think of that would have toys - CVS. Oh boy. This resulted in purchasing a remote control helicopter that was marked "Ages 8 and up" for a 4 year old. Oops.

 



Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.





The rest of our weekend was spent at the park and running errands, and of course, trying to potty train the pup without going crazy.



Those little legs ...



We're All Mad Here - Final Thoughts (For Now)

Here's a calm, pretty picture to lighten the tone of the last few posts. Via Unsplash.

I've spent the past few posts sharing my experiences to date with Family Court in Manhattan - specifically, Support Court. I may share my experiences with the Custody part of this horror show at a later date.

I want to add that I've been told it's near impossible to switch magistrates. Doing so requires appearing before your currently assigned magistrate, asking him/her to recuse her/himself from your case, and then writing a letter to the supervising judge. The process continues from there, but I was informed by the lawyer who provides free advice in the Family Court petition room that it's a lengthy process that very rarely gets approved. Recusals are often only approved in instances in which the magistrate is personally known or related to one of the parties. I have thought about trying anyway, but should the switch not go through, I'm stuck with a magistrate who now knows just how much I despise her.

In conclusion, I want to make something crystal clear, in case there are ever readers of this tale. I did not force a child on my ex. She was not planned, but was wanted by both of us. In fact, my ex urged me to keep her when I was initially unsure, promising to mature, become responsible, and be a good father.

Promises are broken, however, and I had to turn to Family Court to help me get my ex to provide for his child. This system is dysfunctional, though, and not set up to do what is in the best interests of the children. I get that tax dollars only go so far, magistrates can only handle so much. But it took A YEAR from the date of my first filing till I received a decision. It'll be several more years before the arrears balance is paid off. I'm "fortunate" in that I was able to scrape by, by borrowing against my 401k, draining my savings, and putting a month's tuition on a credit card. Obviously, this sucked. I had no savings to fall back on if an emergency came up. I couldn't afford to do anything fun, and a lot of times, figuring out paying my bills was stressful. I will pay interest on that 401k loan and the credit card debt. But the alternative - not being able to pay my bills or afford childcare - is worse. What if I truly ran out of resources and had to quit my job to stay home with my child? What if I had to move closer to family for help? Who would have suffered then? If I quit my job, I might have had to rely on government resources - unemployment, medicare, food stamps. If I were forced to move, my and Audrey's lives would have been uprooted, and the visitation schedule would have to change/decrease. All because the magistrate couldn't have bothered to issue a new order or at least schedule a trial the first time I appeared, last July. So Family Court, how about you remind some of your magistrates (this isn't a blanket statement, I'm sure some of them care about their jobs) that there are children involved here? Children that need food and a bed to sleep in. Children whose custodial parent needs to work to provide those things, but needs childcare to do so. I'm aware that the problem is so much bigger than family court - affordable childcare is a joke in this country - but in the case of single parent families like mine, Family Court can be one of the places that does whatever small part they can to fix a huge problem.

To be continued, ad nauseam, I'm sure.

LOL, what?

 

Taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming for this gem from my email last week. Ordinarily, I don't open junk mail, other than to unsubscribe. But I had just mentioned my Keurig to a friend, in a text conversation about her purchasing a Nespresso (random, I know). So I thought it was a weird coincidence, because I don't usually receive Keurig emails. Anyway, I scrolled down to the bottom ...

 
Seriously?? A recipe that entails rubbing the contents of a K-Cup on some chicken? Somebody call Alton Brown, we've found the next Iron Chef. I guess Keurig's marketing department is really reaching these days. Can you imagine how that brainstorming session went?
"Ok, team, sales are down, what can we do?"
"How about new ways to use K-cups? Use them as bath salts! Body scrubs! Cooking!"

Uh, ok. Let me go purchase a $12 box of k-cups to rub on chicken, makes so much more sense than just using some salt, pepper and lemon juice. If you don't have those things in your kitchen, why do you have Celestial Seasonings Half & Half K-cups??

I can't wait till I see this recipe pop up on Pinterest or Foodgawker ...

We're All Mad Here Part Trois

Potential/Maybe Non-Existant Reader, are you starting to see the problem here? As I started discussing here and here, I filled out my first petition to modify the existing child support order in June of 2013. Where I last left off, we were in April of 2014, with no resolution in site.

In April, we finally did have that trial. Thank you, magistrate, for finally consenting to do your job. At the trial, my ex tried to claim his income had dropped by $10k. Fortunately, I was prepared for this nonsense, because he had previously threatened to purposely reduce his income if I was award anything in childcare. In writing. Yeaaa .. form your own conclusions about his intelligence. My evidence included a screenshot of this text message, as well as a past year's W2, as I had done his taxes in the past, when we were still on good terms, and I had the foresight to keep copies. In his financial affidavit, my ex was asked his current rent. I had learned at the trial that he had moved, and in reviewing his financial affidavit, told my lawyer I knew his new rent was higher than his previous rent. My lawyer, of course, asked him about this at the trial, and he was forced to acknowledge that he had moved to a more expensive apartment.

Despite all of this, my own income had increased over the years, and so my ex's obligation dropped from 46% to 38%, even though She-who-must-not-be-named did stick with his income from previous years. She did, at least, acknowledge that he clearly purposely decreased his income, and therefore did not base his percentage off of his supposed reduced income. However, I don't feel like it's fair to reduce his percentage based on my income increasing. My ex works a four day work week. He waits tables. He takes numerous unpaid vacations a year. His income could easily be higher, but he chooses to do the bare minimum. I went to college, he did not. However, me going to college wasn't based on privilege. I was the first in my family to attend a four year college, so I had no connections or help navigating the process. I paid for it entirely on student loans, which I will probably still be paying off when I'm 50. If he didn't want to go to college, no problem. It isn't for everyone. But he can find a higher paying job. He can work a full time schedule (the horror!). He can, hold on to your seats here folks, crazy idea coming, work harder and work his way up to management in a restaurant. I worked harder. I constantly asked for more work, more engaging tasks. I actively pushed my managers to move me to a busier area. I worked overtime when I could. Because of all this, from the date of the original order to the date of the trial, I had increased my income by 40%. Why should he get a break as result of all of that?

In cases of disability, circumstances beyond the non-custodial parent's control, etc., I get the custodial parent stepping in and assuming more financial responsibility. But in cases of sheer laziness and lack of work ethic, it's not fair, and a major flaw of this system.

So, the trial's done, we're good to go, right? Of course not. Nothing is done efficiently here. Our lovely magistrate, upon the conclusion of our trial, stated that her decision was reserved. What this means is, she would be taking her time coming to a decision and issuing a new order. How long would one assume that takes? My lawyer said it's usually a week or two. So that fantastic magistrate of mine, how long did she take? A week? Two? Try six. I actually finally started calling the clerk's office, and mentioned filing a complaint with She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's supervisor. Lo and behold, what arrives a week later? The final order. Was it correct? Of course not.

Like I mentioned above, the one fair thing She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did was base my ex's percentage off past years' income, but the arrears owed was calculated incorrectly, and is short a couple months' worth of childcare payments. I can't figure out what math she used, but I'm reminded of the "Kelevin" from The Office ... "A mistake plus Kelevin gets you home by seven!" Everything's made up and the points don't matter, remember?

Although the SCU sent the updated obligation to my ex's job, including an extra amount to start paying down the thousands in arrears, his job refused to cooperate for over a month. Nor did my ex send in the difference, of course. So the arrears continued to build. I called the SCU like a slightly obsessed ex-girlfriend. I got different answers every time. "His job has 20 days to respond before they get in trouble." "Oh no, we can't do anything to his job, 20 days was just an estimate of how long it takes." Oh, ok. Wish I had known that 20 days ago.  I went into the SCU office to request the arrears be corrected several times. I was told to send in a letter to the audit department. A letter. There's no phone number, or email address, or even a place I could walk into. Apparently the SCU Audit department still lives in the 19th century where all communications took place via letters carried on horseback. Those letters also seem to vanish into thin air, because mine never received a response. So the next time I went into the SCU office, wondering why I never got a response, I was told by a different representative that I had gone about it in the wrong way, I should have gone back into Family Court. Guess what Family Court told me?

Yep, that SCU handles fixing arrears balances. Round and round we go, where we stop? Nobody knows. Clearly. I was also told I should have filed an objection to the order within 30 days of it being issued. Great. Tell that to the first guy I spoke to at the SCU, who gave me the wrong information. So moral of that story? If the arrears balance on your account is wrong, just stalk everybody.

At my latest journey to the Ninth Circle of Hell, as I so lovingly refer to family court, I filed a violation regarding the payments I still wasn't getting and a request to have the arrears fixed. I also learned that my ex had filed yet another downward modification request, despite the fact that he had just tried that in May and it was dismissed. Arrears payment is a little more complicated, with several factors involved. The SCU will take 1.5x the ordered amount to pay down arrears, but only up to 60% of the non-custodial parent's paycheck, and only if that amount doesn't put the payee below the self-support threshold for the year, which is slightly above the poverty line. Of course, because my ex let the arrears balance get so high, with the new childcare obligation and the extra 50% factored in, his weekly payment is rather large, and he claims he can't afford it. His solution to this problem, of course, isn't work harder and/or decrease frivolous spending, but attempt to decrease what he provides for his child. So now, here we are in present day. Eagerly awaiting yet another display of incompetence, laziness, and spoiled, arrogant, entitled behavior.

My final thoughts on all of this in one final post (for now anyway, there will be updates later) tomorrow.

We're All Mad Here Part Deux

In my last post, I started discussing my experiences with Family Court in Manhattan, specifically, Support court.

I left off with a summary of how our original support order was determined, and mentioned that what I had been dealing with over the past year or so had been a nightmare.

Early last Spring, after a slow deterioration of that amicable co-parenting relationship my ex and I had, we both determined that our current child care arrangement, of him spending business hours with our daughter in my apartment, was no longer working. For now, I won't say too much as far as why. I don't want to bash my ex excessively in this space. We had this arrangement in place for a number of reasons - the two biggest being a) childcare is expensive. We already worked opposite schedules, it made sense for him to keep watching her during the day while I worked to save us both money and b) he didn't live somewhere suitable to take a small child. However, after a year and a half of this arrangement, it was time for full time childcare.

I handled finding the full-time childcare. I guess that process requires a separate post, so I'll just summarize by saying that I found a reasonably priced, safe preschool. It was close to home, I liked the teachers and the director, Audrey seemed to like it, and the hours were perfect. And although reasonably priced by Manhattan standards, it was expensive by rest-of-the-world standards, by not-on-a-six-figure-income standards. My ex refused to pay willingly, and was certain that he would not be obligated to pay anything by the court.

This is where the fun with family court started. I filed a modification petition using the online DIY form. I brought this form in to the petition center on the first floor of 60 Lafayette. They created the petition, gave me my court date and asked who would serve my ex. I could have tried to do it myself, but the family court can have the sheriff's office do it when a violation is also involved (which it was, in this case - he also had an arrears balance) so I chose that option.

We appeared before a magistrate. I learned that a more senior judge/magistrate handles initial orders, and then future changes to that order are dispersed to other magistrates. The magistrate we were stuck with is awful. I googled her after several bad experiences, and found numerous complaints about her behavior.The general consensus was that she was rude, snippy, sarcastic and didn't seem to care about her job. I have NO problem naming the magistrate in the future, but until I get off her service, I think doing so could only screw me more. So for now, let's call her She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Our appearance was at the end of July, a month before Audrey would start preschool. I wanted to get the payments set up for when she started school, rather than start the long process when I was already shelling out the large expense on my own. However, the magistrate declined to set anything up, and simply told my ex to pay his share, even though the original order clearly indicated childcare expenses were to be paid through the SCU, not directly to me. I attempted to explain to her that I knew he refused to pay, which is why I was there. I even tried to show her a printed screenshot of a text message in which he states he will not pay. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn't look at it. She didn't even ask him if he intended to pay. If she had, he would have said no.

At the time, I didn't have a lawyer, so I didn't know what to do next. I attempted to ask She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named what I was to do when September 1 rolled around and he still wasn't paying. She wouldn't answer me. So sure enough, on the first business day of September, my daughter's first day of preschool, I refiled. Our court date was to be in October. We got to court only to find out the magistrate had called out sick. We weren't given any prior notification of this. I had taken the morning off work, and wasted hours of my time. We were rescheduled for November.

By our November date, I had hired a lawyer. I hired the lawyer not because I thought my ex had a case, but because She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named clearly didn't take me seriously, and I felt I needed someone "on my side" to help me deal with her blatant disrespect and disregard for what was fair, or necessary for my child's well-being. We informed She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that my ex was still refusing to pay, so she set a trial date. According to her, her first available date was four months later. I didn't believe this at all, I simply saw it as another way for her to show her bias against me. My lawyer asked for relief in the meantime, which was denied. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did suggest to my ex that he pay some additional amount in the meantime, because whatever she did award me in childcare would date back to the date of my filing, resulting in an arrears balance right away. A suggestion. Right. If anything but court enforced action worked, I wouldn't be there in the first place, lady.

By the date of our next appearance, four months later, my ex was not only not contributing anything extra towards childcare, but had stopped paying even his basic obligation. Our initial trial date finally came, and guess what was postponed? According to She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's clerk, they were still catching up on cases that had been postponed due to snowstorms the week before, and our court date was now scheduled for 7 weeks later, in April. This is where I'll leave you for now. Stay tuned, the ridiculousness continues.

We're All Mad Here

There are a bunch of quotes engraved into the wall upon first entering the Family Court building in Manhattan. Stuff about kids being our future, justice prevailing, blah blah blah. I think this one, or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" needs to be added.

My dealings with Family Court were the first motivation in starting this blog. I wanted to vent my frustrations, collect my thoughts, and consolidate what I've learned through research, from my lawyer, and based on my own experiences. Like I've mentioned, I haven't seen a lot out there regarding people sharing their experiences as single parents (by choice, I've seen blogs by widows/widowers) in a blog format. Yes, it's messy. It's frustrating. It's a less than ideal situation. If anyone ever reads this, I hope they take something away from it - insight, hopefully some humor.

My ex and I were never married. Therefore, none of this was decided in divorce negotiations behind closed doors - everything was done in Family Court. There are two components of Family Court (for my purposes, anyway): Custody and Support. Support, for me, has been the more frustrating of the two, so I'll start there.

Some background: My ex and I split somewhat amicably, almost three years ago now. There was a final fight that led to him moving out, but we had been slowly but surely making our way to that point, and it had been clear for a while that neither of us wanted to be with the other, we were just in it for our daughter. Because there wasn't a ton of drama surrounding our split initially, we were able to come to an agreement amongst ourselves regarding childcare/visitation and support. However, about six months in, some problems began to arise and we both agreed we should have everything made "official" in Court. His child support payment increased from what he had been giving me previously, but it wasn't a dramatic enough amount to warrant a trial. We went in front of the Judge, who calculated the payments. My ex submitted his work information, and the payments were set up to come out of his check automatically.

The common understanding is that child support for one child is a flat 17% of the non-custodial parent's income. Not true. In cases where the combined income is less than $140,000, both parents' incomes are added, and then the percentage each parent supplies of that total income is calculated. The non-custodial parent pays his/her percentage of 17% of that combined income.

So for example, say the custodial parent's income is 60,000. The non-custodial parent's income is 40,000. Their combined income, for the math impaired, would be 100,000. 17% of this would be 17,000, and the non-custodial parent's obligation would be 40% of that, or 6,800. This is then divided by 52, to be paid weekly (or 12 to be paid monthly, etc. I think this varies based on the non-custodial's pay schedule, or maybe just some random reason the court comes up with). This is the basic support "award". I'm not sure what I've supposedly won here... Childcare and health care expenses are calculated seperately, at the non-custodial parent's obligation percentage, which is 40% in our example. Say childcare expenses are $1000 a month. The non-custodial parent is obligated to pay $400 a month. The Support Collections Unit (SCU) will break this down into a weekly payment to correspond with the basic support payment schedule, and divide it by 4.3 (the number of weeks in a month, according to the SCU). Medical expenses are calculated at the same percentage, but since they're usually a one time thing, not weekly/monthly, they were payable directly to me rather than through the SCU (which of course meant I never saw any of that money).

As you can see, this means that the custodial parent's income can increase, and the non-custodial parent's can stay the same, but the non-custodial's obligation percentage can decrease as a result. Fair, right? The custodial parent works harder, gets a raise, and the non-custodial parent is rewarded with a decrease in their obligation. Keep that in mind when I start getting into my recent adventures at court.

So an order is set up, you're done, right? Wrong. Over the past year alone, I have been back at Family Court to either file a petition or appear for court more times than I can count. What is a petition? There are violation petitions, for when the support isn't getting paid at all, on time or in full. There are modification petitions, for when there is a significant change in either parent's income or the custodial parent's child related expenses. I started the process of modifying our existing support order over a year ago, when I knew I was going to need full time childcare. Our previous order only had a small amount for a part-time babysitter.

I am still dealing with that, over a year and numerous appearances later. Now that I've provided my background and a very brief overview of how child support works in New York, I'll share my nightmare. But this post is long enough, so I'll continue tomorrow.

Confession: I Don't Want Any More Kids

 

What else could I need?

I feel like that's less of a confession in Manhattan, where lack of space and cost of living make smaller families more attractive, but I still feel like having more than one child is the norm for most of the country. I've heard the usual questions, mainly concern for Audrey. As in, shouldn't she have a sibling? Well, shouldn't every little girl have a pony? No? Ok. That's how much sense it makes to have another child simply to please the first one. Although I can't imagine my child being pleased with a sibling, she enjoys the attention on her. Won't she be spoiled as an only child? No, I don't feel like my child will grow up to be spoiled as a result of her only-ness. I have no problem saying no to her. I have no problem letting her know that my attention is not always going to be 100% on her - as long as she's safe, she can learn to entertain herself while Mommy cooks dinner or cleans or just has 5 minutes of peace and quiet.

I just don't feel like I have the patience for another child. I'll never be one of those people who oohs and ahhs over babies. I loved my baby, but I never had baby fever. Frankly, I don't care about other people's kids. I don't feel like I'm looking at a magical little unicorn spewing rainbows everytime I see a small child. There's no tug from my ovaries. At no point since my child's birth have I ever thought "Well, maybe ...".

Cue cheesy "Just the two of us..." lyrics

The older my child gets, the easier it gets. Don't get me wrong, there are still the rough days weeks, when I drink a couple glasses of wine at night to keep from pulling my hair out, but overall, I'll take a 3 1/2 year old over the newborn stage any day. I can't even begin to fathom doing all of that again - waking every few hours, feeding & diapering every few hours, cleaning spit up off every surface of your house and person, potty training - but this time around, with an older but still small child fighting for my attention. Two of my siblings and I are each two years apart. It's very true what they say - you gain a whole new level of respect for your own mother after becoming a mother yourself. I have no idea who she tolerated a 4 year old, a 2 year old and a newborn day after day.

The response I usually get when I give people that explanation is, "Well what if you wait till Audrey's 10 or so?" Don't get me wrong, I know I'm very fortunate to have plenty of time to change my mind. I still have at least 10 child bearing years ahead of me. But, not only can I not picture doing all of the above described care with a small child along for the ride, I can't picture having a child who is a teenager, or almost a teenager, and then starting all over again with a newborn.

And finally, here comes the political part ... I believe overpopulation is a serious problem. I believe in, at most, replacing yourself. And I'll "claim" Audrey as my replacement, because her father sure doesn't need to be replaced.


Yep.

Bits of Our Weekend



Random graffiti on my walk to Trader Joe's


This weekend was my "birthday weekend" - but is it still a birthday weekend when you have a three year old and can't really afford extra childcare? There definitely wasn't anything special about this weekend. Audrey was my dinner date Friday evening. We went to a Chinese restaurant around the corner. I think I've decided I don't care for Chinese much anymore. Isn't that weird? To suddenly stop liking a food as an adult? It could be the fact that a few months ago I caught a nasty stomach bug, and Chinese had been the last thing I had eaten before I was violently ill. It wasn't the food's fault, but - guilty by association? Anyway, afterwards, we had cupcakes at home and I was in bed by 11. Woohoo, Friday night AND it was my birthday. What an exciting life I lead.

 

 

On Saturday, Audrey and I met a friend for brunch. I did start on one of my goals for the summer - to try new restaurants. For lunch we went to Tello. 

 

Blurry picture but these two together always melts my heart.

That evening, the man friend came to visit and we went to another neighborhood restaurant I hadn't tried, Pepe Giallo. Afterwards, we got ice cream from a truck, walked home and ate it on the stoop. The three meals out in one weekend was about the extent of my birthday celebration. Oh, and let's not forget the ABC Family Harry Potter Movie Marathon. I did mention how cool I am, right?

 

Using her snake toy as a pillow. Puppy life is exhausting.

We spent most of this weekend close to home because we're still potty training this little pup. So naughty, but so cute. Between lunch and dinner Saturday, we went to the park around the corner and ran a couple errands. On Sunday, Audrey spent a few hours with her father. I walked the dog, relaxed and went grocery shopping. I was a little too ambitious at Trader Joes - $90 worth of groceries, including a watermelon, and I was convinced I could carry it all home, instead of waiting for delivery. Bad idea. Very bad idea. I had to stop every 100 steps or so to adjust, was dripping sweat by the time I got home and my shoulders hurt today. Pathetic.

Happy Birthday to Me

Thanks, Chase. How about some extra cash as a bday present?

The ATM was the first to wish me Happy Birthday. Although in everyone else's defense, the ATM was a day early - this picture is from yesterday.

I turn 27 today. 27! Most days I'm proud of where I'm at in life. There are definitely some things I'd change, but overall I'm ok. 26 was very hard, but a lot of the troubling aspects ended with a positive outcome, so 27 is looking like it will be much better, and boy, am I looking forward to that.

A Girl & Her Dog

Audrey & Maddy

We haven't started crate training yet - we plan to start Saturday, because between my brother and I, one of us can be home most of the day with the puppy for 5-6 straight days starting then. So for now, we are just taking her outside to get her used to walking on a leash. These two got so much attention during our outing yesterday. Literally every single person we passed stopped to gush over them, pet the dog, ask Audrey questions about the puppy. One girl even asked to take a picture of Maddy. They're both hams, they loved the attention.

Single Mom in Manhattan Part Deux

 



Old picture. Her father is responsible for this one, but it makes me laugh.


A huge part of living in Manhattan is figuring out how to make it work financially. Even without a child in the picture, it's expensive. While I won't share my exact income, I though I would give an overview of how I cover everything.

My own income is enough to cover all our normal expenses - rent, food, utilities - plus about half of the monthly childcare expense. Audrey's father is obligated to pay a base weekly child support payment and 38% of the childcare expense, but unfortunately, that's not something I can count on. I won't share exactly how much he should be paying, but he has a substantial amount of arrears. This often leads to me falling back on savings and a credit card to cover the remainder of the childcare payment. I am not on any sort of government assistance and my income is not increased by any way I did not earn (i.e., help from family). My brother, as I mentioned, lives with me. Initially, he just babysat in exchange for housing, but as his availability declined, we agreed upon a small rent payment.

Like I mentioned, my apartment is rent stabilized. This isn't anything that requires special qualifications - it isn't income based, it's basically luck based. My other expenses, electricity, cable, internet, cell phone, a couple credit cards, total less than $500. I have thought about getting rid of my cable lately, and just switching to internet/streaming services such as Netflix & Hulu. It would probably chop about $100 a month off my expenses. I had always kept cable as a "splurge," because as a single mom with a small child, I didn't do a lot socially. But now that Audrey is getting older and we spend a lot more time out and about, it doesn't seem as necessary.

I'd like to pay off the credit cards and get rid of them as soon as possible. I do have two that I use, and unfortunately, carry a balance on. I try to only use them for emergencies, but unfortunately that's been more often than I'd like lately.

I don't eat out often, I don't go out drinking (not because I am opposed to drinking ... give me a bottle of wine any day), I don't spend a lot on clothes. I maintain a budget and keep track of all my expenses. I am trying very hard to get that arrears balance my ex has built up paid so I can have some breathing room again. Audrey has eleven more months of preschool, one month of which is already paid (last month tuition/deposit that I paid when she started). When she finishes in June of 2015, and starts Kindergarten in September of 2015, my childcare expenses will drop dramatically, which should also make things a lot easier.

Until then, our adventures around Manhattan will usually be free or cheap. There will be no fancy vacations or clothes, and I'll continue to keep a tight budget, but I like our life here, so it isn't worth leaving to me. Sure, I could move back out to Pennsylvania, but I would have to find a job with a drastic paycut, or commute 1.5+ hours each way to continue to work in the city. Not worth it to me. Any other area commuting distance to Manhattan, but safe enough for a child, isn't any cheaper, thanks to my rent stabilized apartment. So, we are here for the long haul, Mannahatta.

Single Mom in Manhattan



This little ray of sunshine makes it all worth it.


Don't worry, she was totally fine. She just didn't want me to take a picture of her. Seriously, that's why she's crying. Such a diva. Not a fan of my own appearance in the pic, but it's too funny not to post.

Anyway, the point of this post is to share how I make our day to day lives work. I work full time, and don't have much in the way of "free" help - Audrey's father has her every other Sunday afternoon, and my brother is the only family member nearby. My brother actually lives with me. He moved in last January to go to school in the city. Initially, we exchanged babysitting for rent, but his school and work schedules allow for minimal babysitting, and Audrey is in full-time preschool now anyway.

Fortunately, I have pretty good work hours. I have an 8 hour day, with an hour built in for lunch, so I actually only have a 35 hour work week. With a half hour commute each way, Audrey's preschool provides just enough coverage. My brother still picks Audrey up and watches her for an hour or two one day a week, so I can stay a little late at work and catch up on stuff or run errands. Occasionally I do something with friends and he watches her for a couple hours, but that's very rare. The rest of my family lives in Pennsylvania, or farther, so while my mom and sister have come out for emergencies in the past, they aren't around for day to day needs.

When her preschool closes and I'm not off work, I'm fortunate enough to have a back up daycare at work. It's part of the Bright Horizons schools, and available for use for up to 20 days per calendar year (although one year I had to use it much more than that and it wasn't a problem) for $20 a day. This has saved me many, many times. In fact, Audrey's preschool closes for two weeks next month for annual maintenance, etc., and she will be at the daycare for most of that.

As for the little things - things you wouldn't think are a big deal - laundry, grocery shopping? Yea, those are harder than you'd think when you're trying to do them on your own, with a small child in tow, in Manhattan. We don't have a laundry room in my building, the closest one is a couple blocks away. For a long time, I just sucked it up and did my laundry with Audrey in tow - bringing her to the park or the diner while the clothes were in the washer, coming back to switch them over, then same thing while they were in the dryer. It was tedious. I finally realized dropping it off and having them do it for me didn't cost much more, if anything at all, and it saved a small piece of my sanity.

Another seemingly simple task, grocery shopping, is again, not so simple. Carting bags of groceries home and up three flights of stairs in one hand while trying to hold a three year old's hand with the other? Not fun. I don't do all my shopping at once, or even at the same store. I go to Trader Joes for a bunch of stuff, Fairway for things Trader Joes doesn't carry. Both deliver for free or cheap, so I've used that service when I have a lot in my cart. There's also the Fruit Exchange at Chelsea Market, which has every kind of produce imaginable. There's also the ultimate lazy way to grocery shop, online. I use Peapod usually, but also recently discovered Amazon's Prime Pantry. The only downside with those is the soonest you can get your order is the next day, often at least two days later.

As I mentioned, Audrey is with her father for a few hours every other Sunday. I try to use that time for every thing else - catching up on tv shows I can't watch around Audrey (those True Blood sex scenes? Not 3 year old appropriate), miscellaneous errands such as returning stuff, doing stuff with friends - brunch, shows, etc., or schoolwork.

Oh right, did I mention I take online classes? Had to fill all that free time somehow right? The biggest reasoning behind this, which I think I mentioned in one of my first posts, is to defer those student loans. But I still try to do well in the classes, in case I decide to transfer the credits over to a graduate program at some point.

So in some ways, the city presents challenges that aren't found in other areas - the inconvenience of carting laundry/groceries multiple blocks without a car - but it also presents solutions not offered elsewhere. This fortunately gives me most of my weekends to enjoy with my kid. I do my own cleaning (although I'm certainly not opposed to hiring someone, it's not in my budget right now), so most of that gets done on weekends, but I try to spend as much of it as possible actually enjoying ourselves.  

Finances are another component of how I make it work as a single mom in the city, but I think I've rambled enough for one post.

Bit of our Weekend

 

 

For fourth of July weekend, I took an extra day off and made it a four day weekend. We went out to the Poconos, where my parents live, Wednesday evening. Our original plan for Thursday was to go to a waterpark, but there was a 90% chance of thunderstorms beginning in the afternoon. The morning and early afternoon were gorgeous though, so we went to a nearby pool. It's a little secluded and actually part of a resort, so we had it to ourselves for almost two hours. A friend came with us, so Audrey had us taking turns pretending to be sharks. This involved pretending to capture who ever wasn't the shark, and drag them out to the "sea" (the deep end of the pool). She had a blast, and then took a nice long nap afterwards. The rest of the day was spent hanging around my moms house, because the thunderstorms came as promised.

 

 

 

This is my 15 year old brother, Ian. Ian was always "the baby" to me, till Audrey was born. It's amazing how much kids grow up when juxtaposed with a much smaller child. He turned into a teenager overnight in my eyes. And he certainly is a stereotypical teenager now - he shuts himself up in his room most of the time. I can tell he loves Audrey though, and she loves hanging out with him. On Thursday evening, he came downstairs for a couple hours and the two of them got into trouble for a while (setting up pranks for my mom to find when she got home - silly stuff), then they relaxed and played with iPads.

 

On Friday afternoon, we ran some errands in town, including Target - I admit I am one of the Target obsessed. I stopped in to grab a sweater for Audrey - it was supposed to get down to the 50s that night, and we were going to watch Fireworks. Of course, there's that lovely little $1 section right when you walk in, and we got sucked in. When we got home we made these cookies - I initially was going to go the super Pinterest-y route and attempt American Flag cookies, but I lost my patience pretty quickly and just did stars. I used this recipe and added some red food coloring. The frosting was just a basic vanilla buttercream.

 

On Friday evening, we went to a little festival and watched Fireworks in town. The Fireworks show was nice but the Festival was packed - and I was a little disappointed to be honest. The area I'm from has changed a lot since I was a kid. There were a lot of obnoxious teenagers trying to act cool - the cursing, the fighting, etc., girls in barely there, way too small outfits, and the smoking - omg. Seriously, people? It's inconsiderate enough to smoke in a public park (it isn't illegal in Pennsylvania, at least not in my old town anyway). But I couldn't even tell you how many parents were smoking a cigarette with one hand, holding their small child with the other. Gross. We might still leave the city next year as the Fourth will fall on a weekend again, but I'll be skipping this particular event in the future. Audrey had fun, which is the important part, but I'm sure we can find something else. Does this make me soon like an ornery old woman? "Those gosh darn kids!" Rant over.

 

On Saturday, we picked up the newest addition to the Ryan household: a 9 week old Corgi. We named her Madelyn, Maddie for short. Audrey is so excited. She's been asking for a puppy for awhile (encouraged by my brother), and I finally gave in. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the puppy too. I wouldn't give in to a three year old's demands if I was against the idea :). Audrey refers to Maddie as "my puppy." "Mommy, my puppy is hungry." "Mommy, my puppy is sleeping." "Mommy, can my puppy sleep in my room?"

 

 

We spent one more night at my parents' house. I made dinner Saturday night, and my brother and his friend went and got fireworks. By the time they got back, it was dark out, so we all sat outside in our sweatpants and sweatshirts, because for some reason it was 55 degrees out, and set off fireworks and played with sparklers. I thought Audrey might be scared of the sparklers, but she loved them.

 

 

 

We planned to go home on Sunday, but my sister, who was driving us, had to work till 4. So while we were waiting for her, we went out and got ice cream. The tiara and wand were $1 purchases from Target. I swear I didn't purposely color coordinate her outfit with them!

 

It was an inexpensive trip - we had family pick us up and take us home, and we stayed at my parents. Our only expenses were food and the gas I put in my parents' cars whenever I used them. The puppy wasn't free, of course, but I don't count that as part of the expense of the weekend, as picking up a puppy is obviously not a normal long weekend activity. It was still a nice break from the city though. We spent a lot of time outdoors, went swimming, and remembered how nice it is to have a car at your disposal, rather enjoying good old public transportation. I didn't get it growing up, but after a decade in New York, I do see the appeal of the Poconos. Or the idea of the Poconos anyway, because apparently, so do a lot of other people. The area has grown exponentially over the years, especially the New York transplants. In some ways, it's good - when I was growing up there, it was a big deal when the Target & Walmart were built. There was one small mall and a shopping outlet about 30 minutes away. Now all of the big chain stores are out there - Best Buy, PetSmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc. So there's more for locals - more shopping, more jobs. But more also means more "bad apples", more traffic. My parents have been talking about moving away for a while, and I wouldn't be upset if they did. It's not the hometown of my childhood, I've lost touch with most of my childhood friends, so I don't feel a strong sense of loyalty for the area. Anywhere with a yard and a pool nearby would do as a little retreat from the city.