The Ugliness of Family

The ugliness of family dinners and holidays will always be there.  The old saying is true, you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends.

While you can choose who you will have for your partner in life, and too many people make the wrong choice for the wrong reasons, you cannot choose who your parents are.  You can’t choose your siblings, your cousins, or your aunts and uncles and all those other relatives.

Of course we sometimes make poor decisions in choosing our friends too, but that’s much easier to fix.

But can you choose who you associate with?

The pressure is on from the beginning and from all sides.

Family is family.  You are supposed to have that family bond.  It is supposed to be stronger than anything, unbreakable, and always there to fall back on as a safety net.

Anyone with a less than perfect family knows that isn’t the reality, it’s an ideal pushed on us all.

The reality is that sometimes family are the most rude, and who you most want to not associate with.

But the pressure is on.  It’s a holiday dinner and you are expected by family and society to show up and pretend to like each other whether you do or not.

That pressure brings together people who really shouldn’t be together, who’d rather be somewhere else like maybe getting a root canal without freezing or pain medication.

That pressure makes people grumpy, cranky, and downright ornery.

It brings out the best and the worst in people.

People fight about stupid things that really don’t matter.

They get nasty for no good reason on people who probably don’t deserve it.

In my family these dinners are best gotten over quickly.

I warn the kids repeatedly before going, on the way there, and as we arrive to stay away from certain family members.  Don’t talk to them, don’t try to play with them, and don’t ask them anything.  Just stay away from them.

I must spend the entire time there keeping myself between my kids and adult family members, running constant interference, protecting my kids from nasty verbal attacks they don’t deserve, as well as dealing with them when they do but the adult will go way overboard beyond what is acceptable.

Luckily my kids have developed a thick skin early on.  I protect them enough, but not so much they don’t know how to deal in a bad situation.

They face the threat of frighteningly loud and fierce verbal attacks from an uncle over things his kid may have done, not them.  But in his defence his kid is entirely perfect and does no wrong so if someone broke Grandma’s ornament it has to be my kid, whether she was even in the room when it happened or not.

Of course I am being facetious here.

My issues: 1. Find out who did it before you freak out on my kid.  2. If she deserves it, give her a reasonable scolding.  A large adult towering over a small child, spittle flying in her face as you bellow like an idiot in her face, plates rattling in the cupboards and walls vibrating from the volume, and  scaring the crap out of her is not reasonable.

And then in that moment when you let your guard down your kid makes a terrible mistake and tries to talk to or play with the wrong uncle.

A fifty year old man telling a small child to “Go bother someone who likes you” in a nasty tone of voice is just plain wrong in my book.

But I am supposed to blame the child.  She was wrong.

Although, I do have to ask myself how a small child is supposed to understand.  She goes to one house one day and the uncles there treat her with respect and courtesy even if they are getting annoyed with her.  They scold in a reasonable tone and only if she deserves it.

Then she goes to the other house the next day where a different set of uncles are mean, nasty, and completely unacceptably rude and volatile towards a small child.

Then again I suppose it is her fault, after all she does have two strikes against her even before she walks in door #2.  First, she’s a child, and second she’s the wrong person’s child – mine instead of the favorite son’s.

And so with Thanksgiving dinner over and Christmas soon to follow we can sit back and ponder the very wise words of a small child:

After a little heartbroken sobbing and a few “I thought he liked me”s,

this little girl pulls herself together better than most adults I’ve seen, turns to me very seriously and says,

“Why does he even have to be my uncle?”

And then she says softly,

“I just wish he could be nicer.”

I wish I knew, kid, I wish I knew.  And yes, I wish he could be nicer too.

It’s not mine!

Ah yes, the cry that repeatedly rings through the house, the call of the lazy and unwilling to do for ones self.

And then in frustration you find yourself stuck having to do it yourself while muttering oaths under your breath about what you’ll do with the stuff *next time*.

I think my day today actually started yesterday, that is how hectic things have been.

I pick up the kids at daycare, and as usual it takes no less than 15 minutes to get the seven year old to get her stuff together and out the door.

We’re in the car and the first cry rings out, “I forgot my shirt!”

Send her back in to retrieve her brand new animal sweatshirt that *all* the kids have and they just had to have (lucky for them they actually needed a few sweatshirts and got one).

We get home and as expected, the shoes, backpack, jacket, and sweatshirt go flying to land in a pile of rubble at the front door and she is gone out of sight.

No less than eight times I asked her to pick it up.  Put away the sweatshirt and hang up her jacket and backpack.

And then the nine year old is out of pajamas.  So, I tell her where they are, all freshly washed and folded and waiting to be put away.  At least six times I ask her to put them away, specifying “That means in your drawer not on the floor.”

You guessed it!  This morning they are still sitting exactly where I left them for her to put away.

And then I spot them.  Two school library books tossed carelessly on the floor at the front door where they will be walked on, kicked, and generally abused.

Twelve times I asked. “Who’s books are these?”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“Well, they must be somebody’s books.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“They’re school library books – Bone and Bad Kitty.  Someone must have brought them home.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“Ok, if nobody wants  them then I guess I’ll get rid of them.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“Nobody took them out of the library?  Nobody brought them home?”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“So, if nobody brought them home then I can get rid of them.  I’m tossing them in the garbage.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“Ok, so I’m getting rid of the books then, since they don’t belong to anyone at all.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“It’s not my fault if you get in trouble at school.  If nobody brought them home I can get rid of them.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“The school library won’t let you take out any more books if you don’t bring them back, whoever’s they are.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“Ok, so Bone and Bad Kitty are nobody’s books?  Nobody at all borrowed them?  Nobody brought them home? They’re nobody’s books?”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

“Ok, so I’m tossing them out then, since they’re nobodies books and nobody wants them.”

“Not mine!”

“Not mine!”

"Ok, here they go, into to garbage.  Bye bye books!”

“Wait!  Don’t throw them out!  They’re mine!”

Well, finally!  That was all I wanted.  Take ownership of responsibility for the books, admit they’re yours, look after them, and put them in your backpack.

Why Telemarketers Get My Goat

What can possibly be more annoying than getting an unwanted telemarketing call?  Just read on and I’ll tell you.

Apparently there is some unwritten rule that they must happen when you are (a) in the middle of eating supper, (b) in the middle of getting your kids to do something important like bathing, (c) on the toilet or in the shower, or (d) any other time it is entirely inconvenient to drop whatever you’re doing to race for the phone.

The Three Annoying Types of Calls:

Generally, we get hit by three main types of calls.

1.            The talks too fast to butt in forcing you to be a rude schmuck and hang up on them calls.

These are the ones who also generally think that any words sounding similar to “No thank you”, “No thanks,” and “I’m not interested” really mean “Oh please please please tell me more.  I’ll just totally die if you don’t go on for another 30 minutes on your products and/or services!”

They also are entirely unable to grasp that “No” means “No” and will try to send or sign you up for crap regardless of how emphatically you say “NO!  NOT!  NO I DON’T WANT YOUR F-ING CRAP!”

And to add that final insult to injury, they take on the injured tone and ask you “Why not?” as if you’d just told someone you don’t want to be their friend after all.

And, of course, some of these are the outright scams like the caller who tells you that they are calling on behalf of your internet provider because your IP address has been used for questionable online activity and you could face legal problems, but its ok because you are probably the victim of a hacker or virus and if you just give them remote access to your computer they can fix it all up (for a fee) ...  yeah, and I’m the  Queen of Sheba too and know darn well they could not possibly be trying to both hack me and bill me for doing it too.

2.            The dead air calls. 

Yeah, we’ve all had those.  You drop everything, dodge kids and dogs, leap over obstacles of toys and laundry baskets in a mad race to catch the phone ... and there’s nobody bloody there!

“Hello?  Hello?” you say, pause and wait.  “Hello?  Is anybody there?”  You pause again, listening for any background sounds, wondering if you just got butt dialed or a friend or relative’s toddler is playing with the phone, or if someone dialed and got distracted.

You half expect to start hearing the laboured heavy breaths of a prank caller or some kid to ask you if your refrigerator is running followed by the warning, “Well then you’d better go catch it.”  Both of which would probably grate my annoyance nerves less than telemarketers intruding into my home via telephone and trying to push crap on me that I don’t want.

And eventually you or they hang up with the sure knowledge burning angrily through you that you just wasted those moments on a freaking telemarketer spam-crank calling you with their automated dialler.

3.            The telemarketing machine calling me because I’m not even good enough for a real person call.

Yeah, it’s frustrating and you ask, “What?! I’m not even good enough for a real person to harass and annoy me?!  You have to send a flipping machine to do your dirty work?!”

But they are, at least, the least annoying of the three.  You don’t feel guilty for hanging up on a machine, and you don’t waste time talking to dead air.

And then things turn from annoying to ugly.

After days of repeated hang-up dead air telemarketing calls at home – one per night every night at about the same time and all originating from a different long distance number ...

... and this despite the fact we are registered on the National Do No Call List ...

I am now getting harassed on my freaking CELL PHONE!

Yep, not only am I now having to drop everything and race to answer the phone (and this is a number that almost nobody has and is used only for calls from immediate family members or for the kids school or daycare to reach me anytime anywhere), but I am now also PAYING PER CALL TO ANSWER AND HANG UP ON A FLIPPING TELEMARKETING AUTO-DIALLING ANSWERING MACHINE!

To top it off, I’m not on an unlimited monthly plan or anything like that.  I’m paying prime $$$ for those handy but expensive per minute pre-paid minutes that are more economical for people like me who rarely use their phone.  And if this keeps up, I’ll have to go buy more minutes because they’re getting used up a telemarketing pre-recorded auto-dialling machine.

You got it!  I’m paying to be annoyed and harassed by a machine spewing out a pre-recorded message!

Silly me, I thought since cell phones cost the consumer money every time they answer it, they were legally off limits to telemarketers calls.

Apparently Air Miles Canada (or so the recording claims to be) has a very important message that I need to spend $$ just to listen to.

I wonder if they get a cut from the cell phone company.

Anywho, while I have to chose between turning off my cell phone and missing an important call from my kids’ school or daycare or wasting my money hanging up on telemarketing machines, I have added the cell to the do not call registry – for what its worth.

Since they’re calling me at home too and I’ve had that phone on the list for a few years now, I already know the registry only works for the ones who chose to follow the rules.

Labour Day Camping and Itsy Bitsy Creepy Crawly Things

It's the Labour Day long weekend, the last long weekend of summer, and I we did it single-married-parent style.

Camping with the girls this weekend started with a bang.  Okay, maybe a lot of bangs.

With ...

- some shrieks and screams

- a lot of Raid

- calls for help

- a seven 7r old girl grumbling “all right, where is it?  I’ll get it

- frantic emptying the counter, more Raid

- 7 yr old declaring “oh, its one of those ones.  Those are the bad ones!”

- a Kleenex box (not the Kleenex tissue)

- EEKK!  It’s dropping to the floor!

- grab a shoe!  No not my shoe!  Scrap the shoe, we have no daddy shoes!

- demand to know where there’s a cop with a gun when you need one

- mashing it into the wall in the corner with Kleenex box – omg not working!

- 7 yr old and me mashing it into the wall in the corner with the broom handle about 2000 times

- 7 yr old inspects “Yep, it’s mushed into the wall” and returns to her movie

- another scream

- ZOMBIES!  It’s alive!  Zombie spider!  It’s gone!

- 7 yr old rushing to the scene too late

- smushed it with a shoe

- “Aw mom!  Not my shoe!  Spider guts on MY shoe?!  Clean it off!”

- “No way, you clean it.  It’s your shoe!”

- indignant 7 yr old, “It’s your mess, it’s your problem.  You clean it.”

- grudgingly go outside to wipe shoe on ground.

- We high-5, do the dance, girl power!  OOOAH  OOOAH OOOAH!

- 7 yr old makes me carry her back to bed (wait a minute!  I’m juggling one de-spider gutted shoe, a broom, flashlight, and a 7 yr old?!

... and girls rule and spiders drool.  We killed the beast and lived to tell the tale and I had to scrub the entire stove and counter top.

The 9 yr old pointedly ignored us through the entire ordeal and will probably deny any relation to us in the future.

When Did Training Bras Become All The Rave for Pre-Tweens and Younger Tweens?

The tweens - that finicky age where the child’s maturity level is nearing that of the teenager with all the insanity and none of the hormones, and yet is still miles apart at the same time.  At least they like to think their maturity level is approaching that of a teenager.

They are trying so hard to act like grownups while they are anything but, and that shows no better than when it’s either bath time or you ask them to clean their rooms.

When Did Training Bras Become All The Rave for Pre-Tweens and Younger Tweens?

When I was in the 8 – 12 year old range, I don’t remember the training bra being a big fashion need.  Nobody made a point to saying, “Hey! I have a training bra!”  In fact, I don’t know of anyone who actually got one before they started developing something to put in it.

I wasn’t begging my mother to let me have a training bra, I was fighting for the right to wear blue jeans – something my mother considered dirty farmer clothing good only for the farm fields and not suitable for a girl in the city.

Flash forward to now and it’s started for us in grade three.  Grade three!  With the wee little flat chested children still years from growing anything and the most important fashion accessory has become <dun dun dunnnnnn> The Training Bra!!  

Apparently everybody who’s anybody has one!  And with a nine year old going into grade four, it is the absolute end of everything social life related for her because she doesn’t have one.

This isn’t the 8 to 12 years olds with the emphasis on close to 12.  No, these kids are the pre-tweens to early tweens.  Kids 6 to 9 years old who think this is a fashion must have.

The nine year old regales me with stories of who has and who’s growing, and as I see these very same children around town I wonder what world she’s living in because they are all as flat as a pack of two year olds.  In fact, the one girl who does sort of have something isn’t growing boobs, the kid’s just fat.  I’ve seen boys weighing in the same with bigger boobs.  Hell, I’ve seen toddlers with bigger fat rolls on their chests.

Even the younger daughter now thinks she has to have bras because she has friends younger than her who have them.

With children determined to be older than their age and maturity, do you go ahead?  Do you buy the training tool for something that isn’t even there to train?  Do you buy the leash and dog biscuits to train a puppy you don’t even have?

Or do you cling to that last vestige of their childhood, reluctant to let them grow up before they (and you) are ready?

The nine year old is already pushing for The Talk!  While I have been willing enough to divulge some of what she should expect with the coming puberty, there are some things a nine year old just isn’t ready to hear yet.  She questions and demands, asking if I’ve left things out and she is certain that I have left out some big mystical secret of womanhood.  There are a lot of those secrets I’ve left out, but I would have less appealing names for them.  Nothing mystical or wonderful there.  We will have that discussion before that part comes, but there’s no point in scaring the crap out of the kid before she’s mature enough to understand.

As a parent on a limited budget with two growing kids in need of so many things they actually do need, I think I’ll be committing the fashion faux pas of the decade and hold of on buying those as yet entirely unnecessary items - The Training Bra!!  

The They Don’t Get me Syndrome

Everyone has felt it at some time, and probably at every age through their lift, that disconcerting feeling where you just want to stand up and scream “YOU JUST DON’T GET ME!”

These days we seem to have it in spades in our house.

The seven year old is dealing with it by being extremely irritable and snarky with everyone in her family.  As soon as she’s left our company for someone else, the attitude apparently does a complete three-sixty, or so I’ve been told.

The nine year old is trying so very hard to be more grown up.  She’s telling me how embarrassing it is to have the earliest bedtime of EVERYONE in school.  Unfortunately for her, I happen to be one of those parents who thinks staying up to ten or eleven pm is just too late for a nine year old who has to be up at six-thirty to go to daycare.  She is trying to act grown up, hang with the grown ups instead of the kids, and trying to convince me she’s in full blown puberty, even though she barely even knows what that is.  (That talk will come, but when I think she’s ready to understand and not be terrified by it).

And our new thing is pulling out crafts at bedtime.  When I point out there’s no point in starting it because its bedtime, I get the old “But, MO-OM, I just started it!” whine.  Unfortunately, for her I also happen to need to two hours after the kids are in bed to get shit done that I couldn’t get done while they’re up.

Like a broken record, the nine year old keeps telling me that I just don’t understand.  I don’t get it.  I don’t get her.  I don’t understand what she’s saying.  Etc,e tc, etc.

Unfortunately for her, I do get it, I understand, and I even get her.  I get both of them.  I’m also their mother, the maker and breaker of rules, and the one who has to be the badass making them obey the rules, go to bed when its time, eat healthy, and look after their needs over and above their wants.

And, unfortunately for Mom (me), there is nobody to get me.  The kids are too young to understand or be burdened with it.

I gave up being an independent person as well as my youth, looks and body, to have kids.  I didn’t have the opportunities for getting a degree and having the earning potential to support two kids and a daycare.  With daycare for two preschoolers costing more than I earned, I became a stay at home parent.

Flash forward, and due to changing financial circumstances in the house and the kids now being in school full time, I’ve had to go back to work.  On two incomes we’re making less than we had coming in before on just the one, plus we have the added expenses of daycare and increased gas costs.

After more than a year now working full time, nobody in the house seems to get that I’m not at home all day to pick up after everyone, clean the house, do the laundry, and make dinner.

Nobody gets that after working all day at an endlessly dull job, picking up kids and listening to them fight all the way home, and then trying to juggle them, cleaning, and making dinner single-handed is just exhausting both physically and spiritually.

Nobody gets what it feels like to work all day at a job, earning half the household income, and be the only one without spending money, without an allowance come payday.

Nobody gets the sacrifices you make as the mother, the things you do without, so they don’t have to.

Nobody gets what its like to try to buy all the groceries and other household necessities on the same old budget you’ve had for over a decade, despite adding two kids to the mix, and even though the cost of most of those things has doubled or tripled in that time.

Nobody gets what its like to listen to your kids telling you how unhappy they are, whining about all the things they want, knowing what they need that you can’t buy, their constant ‘I want’ demands, and knowing that you can’t even treat them to the occasional simple ice cream.

Nobody gets what it’s like to be the full time stay at home parent, the full time working parent, the hard-line rule enforcer, nobody’s friend, looking after everyone but yourself, sole-responsibility for cleaning up after everyone and doing everything for everyone, everyone’s reason for being unhappy and mad because you can’t let them have their way or everything they want, all at the same time.

After more than a year back to work full time the spouse still doesn’t get that you aren’t a stay at home parent anymore, you can’t just drop everything spur of the moment, take time off without notice, to do a last minute holiday or long weekend. Once again, you’re the bad parent and the reason for someone moping and sulking.

Nobody gets what its like to lose all independence, feel entirely dependent, and yet have the entire responsibility of the household maintenance and everyone’s happiness and well-being thrust on your shoulders while you are powerless to do anything but muddle through as best you can alone.

Nobody gets what it is to be the parent, alone and divided, working full time, house keeping full time, parenting  full time, no time for friends, nobody to talk to, no time for your self, the badass rule-keeper, hard-line budgeter, doing it all on your own parent.

They just don’t get that you feel their ‘they don’t get me’ syndrome times 100.

Except, of course, all the other single and single-married parents out there who are all feeling the same way.

Sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves that no matter how alone we feel, we aren’t alone.  There’s probably hundreds of thousands of us out there, all feeling the same things.

The Job vs. the Sick Kid: The Battle Rages On

A typical problem with being a working parent combined with juggling single parenting vs. a spouse on shift work – the foe: a sick kid.

This is proving to be one of those weeks that are the worst of all worlds.

Starting with the long weekend, where I undertook the task of doing the single mom camping thing for the long weekend.

I almost cancelled because the kids were fighting so much from the moment I showed up ad daycare to pick them up, all the way home, and the entire time I tried to get ready and load the car.

Adding insult to injury is the worry over the black water tank in the camper being full.  It’s reading full regardless of the level, which would not be an issue it I could actually dump it.  Yep, can’t dump because the pipe needs repair, and I can’t expect the kids to trek to the big bathroom in the dark in the middle of the night with bears hanging around.  And I don’t know how to fix the pipe.

Naturally, it also happened to be when my body decided to visit upon me the woman’s curse – early!  For me that means double the bloating, double the aches, pains, and cramping, double the fatigue and overall crummy feeling.

To make a bad weekend worse, the older kid started getting stuffy as all out and has a full blown head cold by Saturday, and by Sunday the younger is getting sick.  Monday morning what I thought might have just been too much sun has turned into a high fever, lethargic, and downright sicker-than-a-dog sick.

Staying home would have been an even worse weekend for everyone.  I would have spent it fighting with and getting mad at the kids, trying to keep them quiet all day every day so the spouse can sleep.

So, I pack everyone us and head home earlier than I might have Monday.

Now we’re into Tuesday, I ended up leaving the sick kid sleeping while dropping of the other, hoping desperately she’ll let the spouse sleep (who is on the evening shift this week and has to sleep during the day).  Hoping she can sleep for a bit, then he can drop her at daycare.

No such luck.  So far the illness is winning the fight.  She now has it coming out both ends, which means daycare won’t take her and the spouse is getting no sleep.

Now we’re in a pickle.  I’ve only been on this job a year, have already missed much too much time for sick kids (being basically a single mom and the only one who’s been able to stay home with sick kids all year while they’re hit with one virus after another), and the spouse has been on his job even less, and is still in training and can’t take time off.

What are working parents supposed to do with a sick kid when the daycare won’t take them, neither can take the time off work (and we can’t afford either to lose their job), and at only seven she’s too young to leave home alone for half a day?

And for us, the week has only begun.

Dinner at The Keg with Kids

We took the kids for dinner at The Keg.

Going to someplace like McDonalds or Burger King is a rare treat.  A real restaurant is even rarer.

They did exceptionally well - for my kids.  Up to about the point we were nearing eating out dinner (ok, halfway through eating).

A few gentle reminders to the 9 yr old to keep the volume low (apparently talking very loudly in a nearly empty restaurant is a necessity), and the 7 yr old not eating even though she likes chicken fingers and loves plum sauce, and they lasted about an hour before they began to completely fall apart.

The hubby tried to call it a date.

It's not a date if you have to bring the kids.

Next outing?  Maybe in a few years.

Life as a Single Married Working Mom: Change vs. Routine

Change vs. Routine

Sometimes change is good, but sometimes the negative effects can outweigh the good.

The best defence against the negative effects of change is a good routine.

We’ve gone through a series of changes over the past year and a half, all leading up to the point where we are right now.

First, after 2 ½ years on the waiting list, we finally got into the daycare in our town.  It was just in time because we were at the crunch where I had to find a job and return to work.

It was a big adjustment for the kids to go from being with Mom and taking the school bus, to going to daycare before and after school.

They just started adjusting to that change when the next change came.

The Second change was my return to work.

I found a job and our new life began with me as a working mom.  This change was much harder on the kids because now they had even less time with Mom, and when we’re together I don’t really have time to be a Mom because I still have to be The Mom.  All those chores I did when everyone was at school and work now had to be done in the few short evening hours and on the weekends.

And sure, it’s easy to say that the chores will still be there tomorrow.  But, that’s the problem – the chores will still be there tomorrow.  Only they’ll be bigger, badder, and meaner.  The chores I don’t get done today are only added to the chores that need to be done tomorrow, and before you know it the house becomes unliveable and everyone’s doing the laundry sniff-test, pulling clothes from the dirty hamper to see if they stink too much to wear.

Then came change #3.  Dad got a new job.  This was also the reason I had to go back to work.  Our family income dropped drastically, both of us combined making less than he made before.  And, with the dropped income also came the added expense of daycare for two and the gas for my daily commute to work.

The financial changes probably affected the kids the most.  There was also the stress now of what to do with the kids when they get sick.  That was even more stressful for me than the drastic change in finances.

The most recent change is proving to be the hardest on everyone.  Dad has finished training to the point where the shift work hours have begun.  And it’s rotating shifts.  One week on days, one on evenings, and the third on night, then back to days.  Bye-bye stability.

Day shift – we see him in the evening only, no more mornings.

Evening shift (and the hardest on the kids) – we don’t see him at all for five days straight.  He leaves just before we get home for supper, and is sleeping in the morning, if he’s even come home by then.

Night shift – he gets home after we leave in the morning, but is home for supper and leaves shortly after that.

With the five day on rotating shifts and four days off, our routine is gone completely and that is probably making it much harder for the kids to adapt to this last (and worst) change.

We did briefly get into a routine.  Unfortunately, it was a routine without their dad around.

I even managed to get into a routine of exercising by rigging the laptop on the exercise bike.  I’m not exactly going hard core at it, but when your mind is not watching the clock because you are focused on working or schmoozing, it’s surprising how long you can go pedalling steadily without even noticing.  And with none of the aches and fatigue that I’m pretty sure are mental constructs from clock-watching.  I was even picking my pace up by the end of the week. 

Since returning to work, I have a painfully sedentary life (literally).  I spend long hours sitting in a chair at a desk without moving.  My weight is slowly inching up despite attempts to live on a weight-loss diet and I’ve developed painful leg problems that affect my already poor sleep, waking me with very painful leg cramps and muscle spasms.

With the stable routine that lasted for much too short a time, the kids’ behavior and acting out improved.  And, with the daily exercise I even shed a few pounds and stopped having the pain, cramping, and muscle spasms in the legs for a short time.  Of course, it also helped that on the four days off he took the kids camping while I had to stay home and go to work, so I was able to maintain the routine, especially the exercise part of it, for about two weeks.

And that was the end of our two-week stint of having something resembling a routine.

He’s home at different times, he’s not home, he’s off, he’s working.  We get him two out of four weekends a month, and if we’re home on a weekend when he’s on evening or nights it’s very stressful trying to keep the kids quiet so he can sleep, and they can’t have any friends over.

And when he’s home he wants to hang out (understandably) because he hasn’t seen much of us, if at all, for days.  But it also means I’m not getting done what I need to when I need to.

Bye-bye routine.  I haven’t been able to exercise once since.  Those few pounds came back and so have the leg problems.  The kids have been acting up more too, of course.

We’re still pretty new at this.  And I know we have a long way to go still to adjust to the new shift work life, working mom life, non-routine life.

I’m sure we’ll get used to it eventually, and get into some kind of routine that works with their dad’s ever changing shifts.  Hopefully, one that includes my being able to exercise regularly and still be able to spend those blocks of days he’s around when we are together like a normal family.

Having no routine is making it harder for everyone to adjust, especially the kids.

And having no place to go and nothing to do to keep the kids too busy to notice they haven’t seen their dad in five days is making it harder.  Winter will be worse.  We won’t even have camping then.  We don’t leave the house except for work and school in winter.

It would probably be better for the kids if that routine could include getting them involved in regular activities where they are too busy to notice they aren’t seeing their dad for days at a time.  But, to enroll them in a family membership at something like the YMCA (which has tonnes of programs to try, plus swimming year round and is pretty cheap) I’d have to get a second income.

So, I’ll keep working at building that routine, and keeping it routine, so we can have happier adjusted kids.

And as for me, I keep reminding myself that it’s not about me.  I’m here to be Mom, earn money to help support the family, and make sure everyone has clean laundry to wear, clean dishes to eat off, and a reasonably liveable house.

I feel like a single mother most of the time, with the kids’ dad visiting us for days at a time.  I work, I get the kids up and to bed every day, I look after the house as best I can.

I don’t have time to have friends or socialize beyond the quick Facebook comments.  And with the change in financial circumstances I also have no spending allowance.  What’s left of my income after daycare and gas goes to bills.  I can’t even treat the kids to an occasional ice cream or bowling or movie outing.

I stress over needing more money and how I can earn a second income while having to have the kids with me.  And, if I did have a second job outside the house I’d never see the kids and they would be essentially parentless.

I had a stressful job before becoming a stay at home mom.  The heavy workload should have been handled by two people, not one, and I had to deal with daily abuse and hostility from other staff because I was doing my job.  All those stress symptoms and health issues I was periodically plagued with had magically vanished overnight when I quit working to raise my kids (which in itself can be a stressful job).  Now, despite having an entirely stress-free job, those occasional stress issues have become daily symptoms.

But that’s just life as a single married working mom.

Baby Bunny Dodges Tires

How awesome is this?!

I let the kids ride their bikes to daycare this a.m.

The youngest (7) is just giving it with all she's got to keep up with the 9 yr old and her bigger bike. (7 yr old's bike is too small and has very small tires).

Baby bunny comes racing from a yard, runs right between the 7 yr old's small bicycle tires, comes back and dodges her again, and runs off.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it.  The little bugger came back to sit in the middle of the road.  I had to shoo it off so I wouldn't risk running it over.

My awesome 7 yr old didn't even flinch, and no wipeout.  She managed to avoid hurting both herself and the baby bunny playing a game of tire dodge.