Third Shift, Here I Come...

It was a very nice weekend for the most part. We spent a lot of time outside enjoying the beautiful weather. I got sneaky as far as the Halloween candy was concerned and we took advantage of the Noodles and Company offer to trade candy for Noodles. I had the kids pick out ten pieces of candy each and we traded in the rest. When we got home, I told the kids that they could eat all the rest of their candy if they wanted. My theory was that it would then finally be gone, which it was and now I don't have the candy in the house to tempt me, or kids to beg me for candy all the time.

The week ahead is gonna be a doozy. I am starting a third shift job tonight stocking shelves and working in the warehouse of a mall store. I tried to stay up all night last night in preparation, but with the time change as well as playing outside all day yesterday, I only made in until about one in the morning before I crashed. I have a piano lesson to teach this morning an then I'm going to try to get a little more sleep before tonight. I really hope this job works out and I can deal with the overnight schedule. It is only seasonal right now but if I do a good job, it could turn into permanent. At this point I am just happy that I will be able to pay December's mortgage on December first. That hasn't happened in a long time.

Adding to the stress of this new job, my back went out again last week. It was good for five months and now the same week that I start a new job full of bending and twisting, it decided to go bad again. I spent the weekend in between other activities sitting on heating pads and taking pain meds. Last time it took four weeks for the pain to subside. That takes me up to the holidays. I may have to break down this time and pay the STINKIN' FORTY DOLLAR CO PAY and get a cortisone shot this time to get through. I hate that insurance companies can gouge us this much.

Crazy as it seems, my biggest worry about this is the dog. She has a very little bladder that needs to go out several times during the day and I am not sure it will be effective sleep during the day if I have to wake up after three hours to take her out. I guess that is just another adjustment that we will have to make with this new schedule.

On top of everything else, the boys have conferences this week. I am not worried about Noah's at all considering after next week the REAL teacher is finally back as we're going to be starting over. That and the fact that he has all A's makes that conference not so important. Aaron's however is another story. I am really nervous about it. I will not go into details. He is getting all of his work done, he understands all of the math they're doing and he has gotten every word right on every spelling test. But he's still very young and showing this young-ness in school. And, I will be attending this conference after working all night and probably with no morning sleep prior to going.

I grew up with a mom working third shift. As a result, I became pretty self sufficient. Making my own meals at Noah's age, getting myself ready for school and out the door with no supervision at all. All my life, I have carried a little resentment at not having the mom who helped me do things and never being able to do extra curricular activities because she needed to sleep. The reason this is in my mind now is because we may be facing the same thing with the boys. They will be home from school on Thursday and Friday and both are mornings after I've been working all night. How do I teach them that after all this time, they CAN'T be their usual noisy and fighting selves in the morning while I'm sleeping. How do I make them understand that I NEED the sleep. And what kinds of things can I do to help them to be more self sufficient in the first few hours after they get up. This will indeed be a learning curve for us all.

So, yes, it is definitely going to be an interesting week.