Graveyard shift is gonna put me into an early one....

Once upon a time, in a reality, far far away, was a night shift worker that had no one to answer to but herself and her significant other.....

(Sort of. More like she only had to answer to herself, but chose to include the SO to avoid arguments, but I digress.....)

The necessity to be concerned for anyone else but herself made shift work inconsequential
(Nay, except for the unsuspecting neighbor kids skateboarding at the inhumane hour of 2pm who were treated to the sidewalk lecture of the sleep deprived zombie about how it was like 2am for her and if they could just wait until 4pm, that'd be great).

One day, she had a child. A lovely addition to the somewhat happy couples's life, until it all went to hell in a handbasket and she bacame the single mother to a 4 y/o that was no longer napping during the day, and not yet in school, making the 11am, 1pm, and 3pm hours hell for about a year.
She thought to herself "If I could just make it until the kid starts kindergarten, I will be able to sleep when she's at school and be awake when she's home"...........  

While it was a well laid plan, the Universe had other ideas for this naive shift worker. Unbeknownst to her at the time, parenting a school age child is no longer a simple cut and dry matter of sending them off in the morning and getting them back in the afternoon.....Oh no, now it's a ridiculous combination of having to know when to be where and where to be when in order to participate in the, what seems to be weekly, activities of the class where parents are 'asked' by teachers but EXPECTED by peer mommies to actually participate.
(I know it's cliche to say, "When I was a kid", but WHEN I WAS A KID, I don't recall ever meeting most of my classmates' parents, let alone, seeing any of them in the classroom on an almost daily basis. When did all this happen, and why are the peer mommies not giving me a heads up on the activities??)

Besides being a full generation older than most of the other mommies, and well, working nights, it would appear that we have little else in common than our kids being in the same class.
(Talk about deja vu!! I haven't felt like this much of an outsider since high school....well, maybe since college because being a non traditional older student makes study groups sort of rough. Or perhaps it was in birthing classes, with all the people cooing, and me just feeling like 'What's the big deal?' Now I'm thinking it may have been the baby sign language class, where all the peer mommies had make-up on and were, what seemed like, "intoxicated" by parenting??? And, what I mean by intoxicated, is the happy drunk that 'loves you man' not the mean drunk that is instant asshole just add alcohol.... well maybe they were both there?).   Hmmm.... after typing all that I kind of think that maybe I'm a career outsider, but that's a topic for another blog entry ;) My point, and I did/do have one, is that not having anything in common with the peer mommies has made it hard enough to assimilate, but shift work pretty much destroys any chances of charming your way in to the clique of peer mommies who appear to have their shit together.

Fast forward to 4th grade, I've made a few mommy friends, but that is only because I was unemployed for a year and then had a job as a daywalker for another year and half and now.....
well, now, I'm once again out of the frying pan that is single parenthood and into the fire of the shift working single parent. Feeling the burn of not being able to stay asleep while my progeny is at school, I have to pull myself together enought to play cheauffeur from after school care to extra cirricular activities, then back home to make dinner and help with the homework. (Don't get me started on the homework because the new math is a crock!) Not to mention trying to help with said homework with only 4 hours of sleep and not enough time to nap before heading into work at 11pm.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that, shift work inherently sucks, but having daylight responsibilities that can't be rescheduled to accomodate a shift working sleep schedule and not having any daywalking job opportunities makes this mommy, one sad, tired, and dysfunctional puddle of goo.

It's all relative, right?

This is my first venture into blogging. Not really sure who, if anyone, will read this.

A little about me:
I'm divorced, a mother of one amazing 9, almost 10 y/o girl, and I'm a nurse. Most of what I feel like I have to share will revolve around those three things. I plan to use this forum to vent and share and maybe find others like me, or not. So here we go...........


I've been divorced for 3 years (separated for 5), at some point you'd think the relationship with the my ex would become easier, and I thought it had, until my daughter came home from her weekend visit tonight.

In the car she asks me if visiting her cousins, on her father's side, during Christmas was supposed to be kept a secret. I tell her no. Then she tells me because I didn't report it to her father he was upset when he heard about it and tells her she shouldn't be in the middle of it.
DUH!!

The reason we saw his cousins without him was because they didn't want to be in the middle of the divorce and for whatever reason feel like dealing with me is far less drama filled than dealing with him.

Am I wrong in thinking that being friends with his cousin is OK? He remained friends with my friends that were my friends before we ever met. He even attended annual parties with said friends, much to my dismay. So much dismay in fact that I chose not to attend when he did. I didn't complain to my daughter. I don't even think she realized how upset it made me. So WTH is he doing telling her how upset he is with me and then not even telling me to my face?!

OK, so clearly, this is one of my buttons. However, no matter how sensitive this button is, it's a whole lot better than the daily button smashing I was getting before I decided to ask for the divorce.

I guess it's all relative!