Tuesday, June 10, 2014

How does she do it?




Since I started working from home 2 years ago I have been a full time stay at home mommy during the day and have been handling my work at night, during nap time or on the weekends. I have 2 kids, a husband, job, dog, endless loads of laundry, meals that don't come from drive thrus, boxes or a microwave and a constant demand on my attention and hearing. I've got tons of balls in the air and occasionally I pull off the super mom and superwoman feat. I have at times successfully pulled off classroom duty, cupcakes, home cooked dinner, a clean home and laundry all in one day but mostly I am still in pajama pants and my husbands t shirts, with a sink full of dishes, and messy kids when my husband gets home. For the most part I don't find the stay at home mom thing that difficult, I just have rare days where I have a case of the screw-its. I don't have the luxury of a nanny or a family member that lives with us and raises our kids and handles everything that I ask. I have an amazing husband who helps, and I have great time management. Here's a few tips that I learned over the years....


1. Make time for yourself, take a break. 
Sometimes the endless "I'm hungry", "outside", and other requests will drive me nuts. I have no shame in putting on sesame street, magic school bus or any other show my oldest asks for and letting the kids mindlessly watch tv for about an hour once and awhile. I try and get up earlier than everyone so I can have some me time and focus on the day. It's important for my sanity and hearing to have a grown up time out. 

2. Get organized and stay that way. 
Around 9 months ago I finally pulled out the home management binder that had been in the back of my Suburban for awhile. It's a god send!! I have sections for to do lists, chores, calendars, finances, budget, maintence, grocery lists, menus, goals, notes and tons of things that keep us organized. I've spent a lot of time working on getting everything organized. I have laundry day where I iron the monsters my husband calls shirts, I usually spend a day deep cleaning, and one day a week sorting and purging the mess that finds it way in. 

3. Take a day off.
Every Sunday is strike day for me. I take the time to relax, play with the kids, cuddle on the couch to a Netflix marathon with my husband and don't worry about the mess the kids left, or the soda cans or beer bottles on the counters. I don't mind cleaning up our relax day on Monday. 

4. Enjoy the moment. 
I love being around my kids....well most of the time lol. I enjoy being the one to raise my kids, watching them grow and learn. When I worked outside of the house full time I wasn't the one raising my daughter, I couldn't be when I was working the majority of the time. There was a great article written by the great people at judgybitch about Who's really raising your children I loved this article! I've been on both sides of the fence, it doesn't ,after if it's a daycare center, friend or another family member...you're not the one raising your kid when your working outside the home so much. I've missed those beautiful moments and vowed I never would again. They're only little for awhile and wholesome days I wish they'd grow up I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

Some days I nail this super mom thing....there are days when everyone's has had 3 meals, the house is super clean, baths have been had, everyone is in clean clothes, laundry is done, dinner is sensational, I've made dessert from scratch and baked something from scratch, the garden has been watered, and I'm in a good mood when my husband gets home from work. There are days every ball hits the floor....my daughter has on no pants, the baby is in just a diaper, I've snapped at my husband about dinner needing to be picked up on his way home, and the kids are dangerously close to watching mommy start acting like a caged monkey at the zoo if they whine one more time. Most of the time I've got things together and am getting better and better at it. We haven't been home in almost 2 weeks and my house looks like a bomb went off right now....I've got dishes in the sink, laundry piled up, trash that needs to go out and my floors and surfaces are in desperate need of a scrubbing. When your home less than 12 hours a day for over a week things pile up, and I'm too tired when walking through the door that it's my last priority. My Suburban looks even worse than my house right now. I have an incredible amount of cargo space and it's covered in toys, shoes, clothes, trash, paperwork and everything else that could be crammed in there. My to do list for a full day at home is almost 2 pages long. I'm hoping to tackle it tomorrow while the kids watch sesame street and magic school bus a few times while I tend to laundry, dishes, trash and scrubbing. I will spend another day cooking, and baking as my reward lol. 


1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for the tips!

    I myself is also a working mom with 2 kids. I agree with you about taking a day off and pamper myself once in a while. hahaha. What I did to keep my children busy and leave them under their dad's supervision so I can have my ME TIME, is that I enrolled them under the Art Classes of Georgia International Academy (www.georgia.edu.ph). They do offer weekend classes which is vary favorable and convenient for me since I usually take my day off during Saturdays. Well, hope this could also be possible for you to consider in the future. Thank you!

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