Pointlessness

Taking my two kids anywhere is a monumental task for me.  It's half of the reason I don't take them grocery shopping with me.  The other half is that I'm actually considerate about the possibility of it being a pain in someone else's ass to deal with my kids when they're already trying to do a chore.  But that's a whole 'nother story.

So, having to take the kids to my in-laws on the weekend is not the convenient fun it might sound like.  First of all, we're on a night shift, so we have to get up early on the weekend to fit with their schedule.  Then there's all the planning that goes into it: gathering diaper bag stuff, food and drink for the kids, giving the kids baths before work the day before because there won't be time on Saturday when we're getting up early, taking a shower myself late the night before and going to bed with wet hair, installing a new carseat, also late the night before because it's too hot to do it during the day (when I'd much rather be vegging on the couch after taking care of the kids all day) because I just found out literally days before that we were going ... and on and on.

It's your basic upheaval.  It affects the kid's naps, our sleep - it rips a hole in our entire schedule and weekend.

But, Nico - you just moved into a new, bigger apartment and worked so hard to make it look nice enough for visitors ... plus, they haven't seen your place yet.  Why don't they just come visit you?

I'm glad you asked.  It's because they have a new pool.  Mind you, not-a one of us is going to swim in the pool, and both my husband and I have seen pools before in our lives.  But there's no possible way we could just view a picture of this pool, and then have them drag their two, non-child-having asses here.  It's unfuckingthinkable!

All this stress, just to look at a fucking pool.  You've got to be kidding me. 

My secondary complaint is that they invariably serve food that I have to literally choke down to be polite.  I wouldn't find this nearly so annoying if my own mother didn't make such a huge effort to only serve what my husband likes to eat, on the rare occasions we get to go visit my family.

Edit:  It was a pleasant enough visit - but as predicted, it threw everything into a tailspin.  The boys were miserable from having their naps and meals screwed up, I felt like a truck hit me and still had to go grocery shopping.  As an extra treat, the grocery store was being rearranged, so 35% of the merchandise was moved around, but all the signs were in the same places.  Then, my watermelon rolled under some asshole's car.  You know you want my life!

Night Shift (obstacle #1)

Everyone likes torture, right?  Yeah, me too.  That's why I'm on a night shift schedule.  Well, it's not really my schedule, it's my husband's, and I technically don't have to be on it - but what with being a glutton for punishment, and not being at all skilled at figuring out the lesser of two evils, I do it voluntarily.

It's just one of those things you have to explain to people over and over and over again.  Not that they remember five minutes later.  It's a pain in the ass for making appointments or plans. 

No matter how many times we explained our schedule to my father-in-law, he'd still call out of the blue (and last minute) to say he's in town and do we want to meet for brunch?  I can't figure out if he really just kept forgetting, or actually thought that we'd cheerfully get up four hours early to eat a meal because it was convenient for him.

Before we had kids, the schedule was inconvenient, but I could be flexible about when I slept to deal with inflexible scheduling with doctors and hours of operation.  Now that we have children, not matching up with the rest of the world can be anxiety attack-inducing.  I have no tolerance for sleep-deprivation, whatsoever.  Over the long term, things start getting broken.

But why can't you and the kids be on a normal schedule while your husband works nights?

Several reasons.  Did you think you had the answer to my problems?  You're so cute.  Now get out of my face, daywalker.