I have been working from home since October 5th. It's been an uphill battle to this point, but I think I might be getting into a good routine. The most difficult part is staying on top of all of my different responsibilities and not getting behind. The trick is to not sit down and do nothing, always be doing something. No breaks! BUT if I do take a break, its imperative that it not happen before 2pm. If I slow down before 2pm, you can just kiss the day goodbye. The result is a lot of stress and tears just trying to catch up to my day. It's not pretty.
The WORST is when I get the babies fed, changed, and in position, then refill my drink and sit down to start working, I then realize I need to pump (speaking of...ugh....I need to do that now). Oh, and the bottles are all dirty. So I have to take 10-15 minutes to wash bottles and dry my pump accessories. Then I have to sit down and pump for 10-15 minutes. Then I have to pour that into 2 bottles for their next feeding and put the rest in the fridge. (As I open the fridge, I realize that's where all of my pump bottles have gone, and I make a mental note to freeze all of that at night and wash those bottles so we have enough for the next days storage.)
Finally, 30-45 minutes later, I'm ready to work. I look at the clock, and they should be ready to eat again in an hour and a half. Let's knock out some work! annnnndddd Harrison's crying. *puts paci in his mouth* Now let's do this. *checks email* (terrible idea) *responds to 2 emails, and forwards 3* Hudson now cries. *puts paci in Hud's mouth* I tell myself, "Stay away from email, do actual work. You now have an hour to do something productive with this time."
All of that amounts to about 30 minutes of actual work that gets accomplished between those feedings. Time to feed babies again, and after this feeding I'm going to actually get a lot done, because I'm ready for it now! Now I'm hungry. Digs in pantry for food. Only finds peanut butter. That will work. **Gets an hour of work done between those feedings** #progress
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| My office/view during the day |
Being a working mommy isn't easy. You deal with the guilt of having someone else spend close to 10 hours a day with your children, and you know that you miss all kinds of cute things that they do during the day. You miss the smiling faces looking back at you and the warm snuggles after they finish their bottle. You work 40 hours a week, come home each night and try to spend as much time as you possibly can with your kiddos while also cooking dinner and somewhat cleaning the kitchen, and looking at the laundry pile get bigger (because there are more important things to be done). Once the kids are finally in bed, you do some last minute cleaning and rush off to bed yourself (because you know the babies are going to be up again at 1am, and you will be joining them).
Being a stay at home mommy isn't easy. Your job NEVER ENDS!!! You're always on call, you're always cleaning something, you're probably covered in spit up (and decide it's easier to let it dry and have less laundry, besides, you're now immune to the smell. The smell is now a part of you.). You are the meal planner, the errand runner, the laundry washer, the baby keeper aliver, the milk cow (at least that's the stage of my life currently). You are wonder woman! You likely haven't showered in the past 2 days, and hopefully you had a chance to brush your teeth, and maybe use your deodorant (where did I put that again? Gotta put that on a to do list to find.).
Being a stay at home/working mommy is just not even in my wheel house. (Side note: it's 3:48pm I'm still attempting to blog after pumping and getting my snack, and Harrison is crying...BRB.) (3:56pm and I'm back. Harrison has now been swaddled so he will actually nap.)
Back to what I was saying....it's HARD to work at home and be a stay at home mommy. These first 3 weeks I've tried to keep up with as much as I can, but my sanity recognizes that I need to pick and choose what my priorities are going to be, and everything else will just get done whenever we get more than 24 hours in one day. Kevin is a huge help to me, but he gets to go to work and get out of the house every day (I'll admit I'm slightly jealous. But I'm mainly jealous during days that the boys won't settle down.). I know he's tired in a different way than I am. We share the dinner responsibilities as far as cooking and cleaning. He does almost ALL grocery shopping (he's an amazing man...I HATE the grocery store.). We share the laundry load (and are both still drowning in it). Our greatest complication is that there are two little mouths to feed. Ideally, once Kevin is home we each take one baby so they get some solid one on one time from us. I've been feeding 2 babies at the same time all day, so I will admit there are occasions when I decide to put Grady to bed and leave Kevin high and dry to handle two crying babies at the same time. I'm immune to the crying. I have a volume button and I can block it out until I can get to what they need (always within a reasonable time...babies are a bit dramatic). Kevin on the other hand....cannot block it out. So when I finally get Grady to bed and can relieve Kevin, I sometimes have 3 cranky boys to calm down. =)
In order to not completely lose our minds and become frustrated with each other, Kevin and I communicate A LOT. I'll admit that I mostly complain, and he listens. And then there's really no real solution to my frustrations, so we hug it out and I take a hot shower (if I have time) or go to bed.
Next week, I have a new game plan. The boys have been enrolled in Mother's Day Out on Monday and Friday! So I will now have 2 days a week that I get a few uninterrupted hours to complete my work. I don't even feel guilty about it. I wanted to send them 4 days, but they only had an opening for 2 kids on those two days. As soon as another baby in the nursery is ready to move to the toddler room, we will take that spot and send the boys more days a week. Starting in January, they will be there full time and I will be back in the office. So I just have to come up with a game plan to make it through the next 2 months and still be productive. I can do this! We will see how next week goes.
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