Master of none apparently. I can now see why working mothers give up their careers specifically when the kids get to real school. I mean I only work part time so I give the full time working moms with kids in school a real big "hurrah" and "here here" to them. Two weeks ago I was flat out at work. My mom who is always happy to be my fallback child caregiver was away for a week and I needed to work 32 hours. Do you get that? A whole 8 hours more than I normally work. At first I though, that is no sweat - what is 8 hours. Oh, how dumb I was.
My friend Missy was nice enough to come over and watch the girls for me while I was at work that extra day and took up the slack from my mom being away on my usual day in the office that I need child care coverage. Missy and I went to high school together so I have known her for about 20 years. She is also and out of work preschool teacher so she did and AWESOME job with the girls. They had a lot of arts and crafts time, she took no stuff from Nicole who has proven to me that terrible twos are a misnomer but that is a whole different post and the girls have asked again and again when she will be back. So if that doesn't spell great sitter I don't know what does.
Anyway, I had to work 4 days that week and by the end of it I was fall down exhausted, had little patience for the kids and their antics/fighting, particularly at bed time when I was going to be going to bed right on their heels.
What it taught me? That I have yet to master this whole work life balance. I don't really know how anyone does it effectively or maybe that is really the whole idea. Maybe every other working parent I know does it all with smoke and mirrors and their houses are just as much chaos as mine can be. Luckily I married the right guy because he took up the slack I was laying down on my motherly/wifely part of our house such a cooking, grocery shopping, kid pick up and drop off, lunch packing and bill paying. Work has calmed to a respectable level though part of me misses the adrenaline rush of the weeks with so much to do.
So my thoughts still wander to how other people do it? How are there enough hours in the day? How do they fit in the kids, work, personal appointments, *gasp* workouts, etc. Maybe they sleep less or maybe they have children who go to bed at 7:30 on the dot instead of constantly pushing the limit to 8:30ish with the latest demands for water, another baby doll, lovey, etc. Or maybe they go through the same struggles. Maybe they don't sit down to dinner each night as a family as we strive to do. Maybe they don't see their significant other due to opposite working shifts. There are a lot of maybes out there. But it has been comforting to know that some of the families I have met thus far through Aimee's class seem to be in a similar juggle as I am with family watching their kids, one kid here, another one there, mulitple drop offs, extracurricular activities, etc. I just think they do it with more flare, better hair and matching socks.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment