Friday, April 29, 2016

Work-At-Home Mom Balance: Three Months On

I've been a work-at-home mom for approximately three months now. My biggest challenge by far, as I knew it would be, is balance. How do I, one individual, balance motherhood, work, household, and my personal time (lumping together “me” time, my husband, and my social life)? I could barely balance before I became a mother. Add to my life a helpless baby who depends on me nearly all day every day for survival and everything else that I couldn't quite fit in before gets pushed to the back of the line.

My Career


I'm working part time right now, a few hours per day. Someone recently asked me when I think I'll return to full-time work. The thought is so far from my mind, I can't even contemplate it. I'm trying to build a new scientific and technical consulting business from scratch which includes a large social media presence and writing a book. My company has one employee: me. At this point, I'm barely making any income. But every company starts somewhere, and a tiny income is still something. Not yet enough to give me a salary, but enough to cover expenses and get my name out there.

Last night, just before bed, I thought about what I could do to gain more clients. I formed a plan in my head and felt positive and empowered! The reality of this morning hit: I don't have enough time in my schedule to do everything I want to do for my work now, let alone sign another client. Plus I have a contract in negotiation which will bring in more work soon for me to fit in. I've been meaning to write a company report for weeks, even telling myself that this week was the week I'd get done. I'm now half way through Friday and I haven't even started it. I just haven't figured out the balance yet.

Household


I'm a clean freak. My husband looks at the house and thinks it's fine, but I look around and see filth and unfinished home projects. One of my dreams is to hire a regular (monthly?) cleaning service. But my husband doesn't think we can afford it right now. My daily must-dos are keeping the kitchen clean and keeping up with laundry. But the carpets smell like the dog and the bathrooms are so gross that I dislike using them. I can make time to vacuum one room, but not the house. I can make time to clean one toilet, but not the whole bathroom, and not even both toilets. Everywhere I look, I think, “I could get on top of cleaning that if only I had a solid block of time!”

Household also includes necessary adult duties like doctors appointments, handling bills and services, and other not-fun things that suck up time. My current in-the-middle-of-it time-suck is refinancing our home mortgage. I spent an hour handling it all yesterday, but haven't yet taken the time to actually upload the necessary documents. An entire morning can be spent handling these necessary tasks without me even realizing that the morning is disappearing.

Personal Time


When my husband comes home from work, all I want to do is relax and spend time with him. We're best friends and we rely on each other for sanity and happiness. Yes, I could hand the baby to my husband when he comes home and lock myself away to work or clean the house, but then we wouldn't have the pleasure of each other's company. And I value that more than I value work and chores.

I have a good group of friends who I try to hang out with once or twice per week. Sometimes, like this week, it just doesn't happen because I'm too worn out playing catch-up after our mini vacation. I value my friendships and my time to get out of the house and appreciate others. I'm an extrovert and a people-person. I enjoy adventure and experiences. I have to be true to myself, whatever is going on in my world.

“Me” time is what I sacrifice the most. A few weeks ago I actually spent a few hours straight on a Saturday reading a book. I don't know the last time I had done that previously, and I haven't done that since. I got so worn out yesterday afternoon, I called it quits at exactly 5:00 so I could sit by myself (with my baby) and watch the Game of Thrones episode that previously I would have watched immediately and not waited days. My normally well shaped fingernails and painted toenails have been recently been neglected so badly that I'm now making a conscious effort to care for them. And exercise to actually lose this baby weight – ugh. If I hadn't set a goal of 5 minutes each day last week, I wouldn't have done it. And because I didn't set an exercise goal this week, I haven't done a thing. And forget shopping!

Motherhood


Although my baby takes up a huge amount of my time and effort now, she has been the most welcome distraction. I never saw myself as a stay-at-home mom, but now that I have her, I see the appeal. Spending my days with her is what I look forward to the most each morning. She brings me joy and love greater and deeper than anything else, greater and deeper than I previously thought possible.

She's four months now, old enough to be put in daycare while I work or clean or do what I need to do. But I don't want to. I love seeing her day in and day out. I love experiencing life with her. This morning, she gave me a series of huge grins as I put her down so I could shower. It was so difficult for me to pry myself away from her beautiful smiling face in order to take care of basic personal hygiene. As the Aerosmith song goes, I don't want to miss a thing.

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