Why does money....

end up being the cause of so much trouble?

We're prepping for a child support hearing...with Madeline in our custody and Lexi no longer living at home and with the birth of Bella there was a modification in the amount of child support that we had to pay...

Automatically, it was deduced from Cruella's side, that we were trying to "steal" money from her by not claiming all the allowances that John receives, hiding money from her and in general just trying to get away with paying less because...

...because why? I have no idea. I would like to publicly state that I believe in child support. I think its important that when people divorce that each parent contributes to the financial well-being of their offspring. I have no problem paying child support.

I just want to thunk her over the head when I look at what she's claiming...the allowances she thinks we're getting (we're not...) and the wild claim she's now making that she's been diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder that has forced her to reduce her work hours to 25/week...

Tell me again who's trying to cheat someone out of money owed...?

I also realize that I can't dictate how someone spends their extra income and as long as the kids are happy and healthy I probably shouldn't complain about the $150 haircut and color, $40 manicures, $70 dog grooming, $200 laundry service...

I have a confession...I used to write in the memo of the checks that we'd send to the state, "Cruella's new hairdo money" or "Cruella's night out on the town." Fortunately, with the invention of online billpay I've been released of that catty behavior as an option.

I suppose online bill pay can be attributed for this "bettering" of myself.

All that bettering flew right out the window when we ran the support calculators and discovered that Cruella's request for a hearing works in our favor as if it comes out how we think she may actually owe US $3 per month. And let me tell you that I'll be laughing all the way to the bank to cash that check and then I'm going to use it to buy myself a jar of nutella that I'll share with the kids.