One thing that work from home moms do a lot of is trade off time with the kids and time spent working. (And that’s not to mention self-care, the other important element of the time triangle!)
These days I rarely get up before the girls do. In fact, I’m typically the last one in the house out of bed. I blame not having slept through the night more than a handful of times in the last 2 years. But I digress.
This morning, I got up before the girls. It was 6:15 and our dog had just barked off the neighborhood bear. Surprisingly neither girl woke up.
Although groggy, I was awake.
I decided to jump into work. I worked from 6:30 – 7:15, grabbed coffee, chatted with my husband, and then again from 7:30-8.
Even though I work from home, I don’t work everyday. Today is my mama-day, my day with the girls. But it’s also a Monday and I have a big week ahead, including a new client, wanting to finish off one of my digital products, and do a few things to get this website off the ground.
It felt wonderful to start the week off with a little work and tick a few tasks off of my to do list. As a result, I was more present as a mom too. There have been more games, talks, and activities today than might be typical. I also impressed myself by not being annoyed when the oldest got up after 35 minutes of quiet time.
And yet here I sit now, grabbing a few minutes to write while the girls play at the water table. But I know that after I get these thoughts out of my head and onto digital paper, I’ll be able to shift back into the mom I’d like to be.
Figuring out how to allocate our time among everything life demands of us is one of the more difficult challenges we face as moms who work from home. Today I may have learned that in addition to honoring my desire to be a big part of my girls life, I also need to honor my desire to work. Perhaps I can learn to own letting that be part of my day, even my non-work days, instead of feeling guilty about it.
How do you deal with the tension between mom and work time?