Life as a Work-At-Home-Mom

I recently registered my 16 month old baby girl/coworker/boss/partner for school starting in August. I was leaving the school office and stopped to chat with two different women, at two different times. Both of these women said something to the fact of "what will you do with all your time?!"
I looked at them with my eyes wide open (like hello!!) and said "Well...for one thing, I'll actually get my work done!"
One of them said "Oh yeah, I forgot you work..." and another said "I didn't know you worked!"

Let me start off by saying:
Just because I look like hell every morning at school drop off, doesn't mean I don't work.

Just because I'm at almost all school functions/parties doesn't mean I don't work.

Just because I volunteer, doesn't mean I don't work.

I'm sure they didn't mean any harm making those comments, but it kinda stings a bit when you bust your butt every day and people think all you do is go to mommy&me classes. But, then again what do I care what other people think? ;)

I know there are thousands of people (mommies and daddies) that are in the same situation as I am. I have a job. Like a job I get an actual paycheck from. A job other than my job as mom where my paycheck consists of  love, temper tantrums, and extra chores. I work for this job every.single.day. at the same time as I'm doing my "mom" job. I'm just a lucky gal and get to work while a baby disrupts me every 2-60 seconds. Is that lucky? :) The grass is always greener...right?

This week happens to be Spring Break so with both my girls at home, my job juggle gets harder. While my girls come before anything in my world, sometimes I have to plop them in front of the TV so I can get some work done. Yep, I know it's not the "right" thing to do, but it happens and that's real life.

With the move and spring break, I am currently still entering data into Quickbooks from February. This may or may not give me anxiety attacks at night. :) 

Just to give you an idea, I've recorded one of my working days for you:

6:00 - 6:30: Wake up, shower, get dressed. Doing all this is 30 minutes is the reason why I look like hell every morning. Yoga pants nonstop.

6:30 - 7:00: Make breakfast for Angelo & I, get dogs breakfast, pack up Sophia's school bag, sit down and devour my breakfast and coffee for 5 minutes. These 5 minutes are sometimes the only alone time I get with Angelo all day. And that's OK, 5 minute dates are better than none. 

7:00 - 7:45: Wake up girls, get them changed and teeth brushed, and serve them breakfast (waffle, bagel, oatmeal, or egg...)

7:45: Leave for school.

8:00: Walk Sophia into school, say hi to everyone while looking like hell. 

8:15 - 9:00: Go to bank to make daily work deposit, drive home

9:00 - 9:45: Get home, let dogs out, play with Nelpe for a little while, get situated in the office, play with Nelpe while getting my computer loaded up. 

9:45 - 10:30: Nelpe starts to fall asleep (on a good day). I check my email and blog. Do some Link Love (comment on other blog posts), and start writing out my blog post to launch tomorrow.

10:30 - Get a call from husband telling me that I need to make sure to get something done today (contact bank, respond to a letter, send out a check, etc). Yeah Yeah Yeah :) Finish my blog post and start doing accounting work.

11:30: Nelpe wakes up and roams the house while I get a few more minutes squeezed into work. Right now I'm going over daily bank transactions and matching them to individual order numbers. Like "this engine we bought from S&S on 01/23 was for Order#151236". I'm down to the last transaction for a specific day and Nelpe starts whining for me to pick her up.

11:45: I have finally put in the last two transactions into Quickbooks, while picking up Nelpe 4 different times.

12:00: Make Nelpe and I some lunch. Sit her down with her lunch. Go back to office to start putting in orders into Quickbooks.

12:15: Nelpe is done with her lunch and comes into office to sit on my lap. She grabs at whatever pen/highlighter I'm holding, or the keyboard. She throws a tantrum every time I put her down or take a pen away from her. This can last 5-20 minutes.

12:30: Nelpe is happy with a marker and piece of paper. So I get a good 30 minutes of work done. I look up and Nelpe is writing on a baby doll, piece of furniture, or dog with marker.

1:00: Nelpe sits on my lap. She starts slamming on the keyboard and suddenly everything on my computer screen closes and my keyboard isn't working. I put her down with my phone to play with while I figure out what the heck she did to my computer.

1:30: I get everything back to working and Nelpe is playing with her toys (Oh you actually play with toys?!) 

2:00: Save all my work, close computer, and leave to go pick Sophia up from school.

That's the end of my work day. The rest of the day is spent with the girls, cleaning up the house, making dinner, and going for a run once Angelo gets home. 

For all those parent's who have tried to get computer work done while having kids along side you, I feel ya!! It's not easy, and sometimes you might pull your hair out. It makes for some long days, but short years. I wouldn't trade it for the world, it's my life, and it works for now. 

You know the best part of being a Work-At-Home-Mom? I make my own schedule. And yesterday, this was my job.

XOXO