I am in a funk that I cannot seem to pull out of right now.

All I have felt is stress this summer, as Jon works 16 hour days, and I work AND try to keep Kyan happy. Which means at the end of the day, We are both tired and stressed, and just....UGH.

Kyan is so interactive now...he loves face time with anyone. His naps are wittled down to maybe an hour in the mornings and an hour int he afternoons, which means he has roughly 3 hours where he has to play alone while I am working. Maybe it's just me, but that seems like WAY too much "alone" play time, and an awful lot to expect of someone eho is ONE YEAR OLD. SO I let him play in his room, cause my office is one door down the hall-his room is baby proofed, and so I leave his door open and put up a baby gate in his doorway so he can't get out of his room and into the hall, where our telephone wire runs along the baseboard and is Kyan's favorite thing to play with. Well, every time Kyan sees that baby gate now, he starts to cry, because he knows it means I have to stop playing with him and disappear down the hall. He'll cry intermittenly throughout playtime, because he knows that means I will run down the hall to check on him (provided the Bosshole is not reaming me out for something or dictating an insufferably long letter). And then he'll cry when I have to walk down the hall again.

He's not even getting my full attention on lunch break. If I were a full time non-working Mom, I could get chores and stuff done while he slept. But since I don't have that option, things get squeezed into lunch hour, and the time I have to spend with him.

So basically, I am in Hell. There is no forseeable way out of this situation. We can't make it on Jon's income alone, we can't afford daycare, and try as I might, I am not having any luck finding a job with better hours.

I would love to blame someone else here, namely Jon, but I know he is busting his rump and working these long crazy days so that hopefully one day I won't have to work. But I need a solution now, and there is not one.

When Kyan was younger, I was only looking for something at night time because I didn;t want to leave him. I still don't want to leave him, but it's clear he needs interaction and constant attention/monitoring (he IS a one year old), and if I could find a job that paid enough, I would put him in daycare so he at least got to play with other kids. If I didn't have to work, I could set up playdates and he'd have so much more interaction with me AND the outside world. But I can't even find a better paying day job. So here I am. Feeling awful and guilty and knowing Kyan is getting not only the short end of the stick, but the short end of the stick covered in shit.

I always wanted my kids to be independent, but I wanted them to know they could count on me for anything. What if Kyan is already realizing I am not meeting all his needs? He cried in his sleep last night, and I so desperately wanted to prove to my son I can be there when he needs me that I slept on the floor of his room in case he cried again. Except it didn't prove anything and I still don't feel any better, and now my back just hurts from sleeping on the floor all night.

I don't know what to do anymore. I complain and complain, and I rant and rave and I cry, but nothing changes. And I can't keep doing this to Kyan. He deserves so much better.