Monday, November 15, 2010

What's the secret?

Today I worked an eight hour day. Which, for most of the world, is just a normal day at work. But not for me. When I work at the school or nanny, it's usually four or five hours at a time (even though it often feels like ten hours!). But today I had to be at work at 7:30 in the morning. Which means I needed to leave my house around 7. That would have meant having Harrison get up on his own, get ready, remember to let the dogs out, and lock the house up while getting to his bus on time. Me, of little faith, decided this was too much of a risk at this stage of the game, and had him sleep over at his dad's so his morning routine would be supervised. I worked my job, then arrived home just a bit after both Arlie and Harrison. I was pretty tired - not that I'd worked hard - but mostly because there wasn't much for me to do so I spent a lot of time finding things to do or twiddling my thumbs. And when I'm bored,  I get tired! (I did enjoy the job a lot though!). Still, I could have easily fallen asleep for a little nap when I got home but instead I........supervised chores, made dinner, had an unexpected guest for dinner, met Jeff coming through the door with a migraine (his are scary and stroke-like so I spent some time debating and ER visit), took Harrison  and Arlie to Starbucks (payback for an earlier day where they did their sisters' chores), made lunches, cleaned up dishes and kitchen, and THEN I had to work on volunteer stuff for the book fair at school. Now it's 11 p.m. and  I'm so tired and I wonder - what is the secret? How do moms who work full time balance their time and fit everything in? Forget about working out - I was booked up all day and way too tired at the end of the day to do anything about my physical fitness. I just can't help but wonder - what "gives"? Obviously no one can do it all, so what things do working mothers skip in order to find time for other priorities? I'm lucky in that I do not work full time so I cannot speak to how to balance a family while working full time. But on days like today when I'm working all day I think about working moms and wonder how they do it all. How do they spend quality time with their kids, find time for fitness, cooking, cleaning, volunteering, and everything else? It just seems like a depressing cycle of being too busy, too rushed, too tired and never enough time. I already feel that way sometimes and I'm not adding in a full time work schedule to the mix. Working moms with families, tell me your secrets!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I work out with the kids. I drop off for morning delivery to school or they get themselves there. I work my 8 hours, school pick-up. I do a mini workout in the cool down time post school for 30 minutes, then we do homework, do chores together, do a 30 minute workout together, cook dinner, eat dinner and start bedtime routine. I get the youngest one to bed after bath and bedtime story while the older ones take care of themselves. They are old enough to understand the consequences of not taking care of themselves and there are always repercussions. By 8-830pm I have free time in which I catch up on the computer, take care of my own household issues and have my me time and see myself to bed (with the aid of melatonin) by 10pm. Back up again between 5-6am to start all over again.

Sydney said...

Well mine's no secret, heh. I work full-time and I go to school full-time as well. Last night Stu had a test too, which meant he brought the kids to me at work because there was an overlap where he had to test and I had to still be at work. When the kids and I made it home, one was grumpy and the other was "STARRRRVING" so I turned into a superhero with speed powers and made frozen fish fillets, frozen raviolli and broccoli for dinner, fed the baby with my forehead while I ate my own dinner, cleaned up everything, did a load of dishes, played "cars" in the playroom while I bounced and talked to Jackson, baths, books, fall into bed. Then, two night time feedings (an hour a piece for my slow eater) between "bed time" of 11 PM and "alarm" at 6. Repeat. Ph, but tonight I also have night class so I am home 3 hours later than last night. Sigh. This, too, shall pass.

jeff said...

Turn off e-mail, Facebook and all other electronic distractors until you take care of you first. Block out time for those things at the beginning, middle and end of the day.