A Day In the Life of a Work at Home Mom with a Toddler
Those glasses should be on my face!
I never in a million years thought I would become a work at home mother while my children were all still at home. I always imagined being a “susie homemaker” stay at home mom. And for my first couple years as a mother, that is exactly what happened.
Then I got pregnant with Addison, and life threw me a handful of awesome and unexpected surprises, that rocketed me into the growing world of work at home mothers.
To describe my day-to-day life as crazy would be a serious understatement.
I wanted to share a couple parts of my day with readers, so that you can kind of get the full effect of what my day actually is like. Because of course people are always asking me not only WHAT I do, but HOW I do it.
Need a good laugh… just remember while you are reading there is a tone of heavy sarcasm. That always seems to be the case when I post about the stress in my day to day life!
Can’t take it all too seriously, right?
Any other work at home moms out there who have their children home with them?
My day starts off with Coffee... lots and lots of coffee. Which is then followed by getting all three children dressed and packed into the car to bring my oldest son to school.
Oh did I mention drop off for him is at 8:30am... Yeah... I am so not a morning person! By the time we get home, roughly 9:00 AM, I am wondering where the hell the toddler's clothes went. I cannot keep clothes on him for the life of me. Even in the dead of winter. Around the time I get the two year old dressed... again... it is time to feed the toddler breakfast. Which will buy me about a half hour to get a couple things done.Typically this is the time I get some of my posts published for the day. Then I head to my to-do list. We don't do a ton of television, so when I let the toddler watch his limited amount of Dora, or Sesame Street, or whatever he decides he wanted for the day... it is back to work for me.
Jump into my to-do list. Sometimes it is stuff around the house, sometimes it is work stuff, but most of the time it is both, and of course I stress to get it all done. Or of course rush through all the stuff I would like to get done for the day.
Whether it is a big craft project, or just some coloring pages, I try and do some type of art daily. I pray it doesn't turn my house into a giant mess. Although normally it does!
Sometimes I can even catch a couple minutes to sneak into the kitchen and find something to feed them! Once I throw him some more food, I pray the toddler actually takes a nap. Cue my second most productive time of the day. (The first is when I really should be sleeping.)
You know all those things stay at home moms are expected to do? Yeah... I still have to do those too. Laundry, dishes, of and of course washing diapers basically every day. Two kids in cloth diapers... the laundry starts to add up. Must have more coffee... more and more coffee to keep me going for the rest of the day. I mean, at this point, my day is just about half over. The kids nap and re-charge, and I keep trucking... Pack up all the kids again, for the 300th time that day, to go pick my husband up from work. Oh, I didn't mention we are a one car household? Yeah. Then dinner... and lather, rinse, repeat everything else I have been doing all day long.
Bathe the kids, get everyone in their Pajamas, and of course pray they go to bed without a three hour long fight... which, unfortunately, is what went down tonight! Then comes my most productive hours of the day. Nighttime. Writing, preparing for the next day. Scheduling posts & tweets, writing up my posts, reading through all my google alerts, you know... all that fun boring crap no one really cares about!
Then sometime between midnight and 1:00 AM, I finally make my way to bed in time for the baby to nurse about 3-4 times during the night. Then I'm up again at 7am to get started all over again. PHEW!
Wake Up: Get Coffee
Wonder Where His Clothes Went?
Hell, some days he strips his diaper off as well, and I will turn around to a two year old peeing on the floor.
Oh Parenting!
Feeding Time at the Zoo!
Cue our TV Time
Hoping and praying that it gets me enough time to weed through my overflowing e-mail box, and on to my to-do list.
Photo Credit: Flickr
Tackle the To-Do List!
This is an amazing app! It is called Wunderlist! If you are all about lists... try it!
Craft Project Time
Please... Please...PLEASE Nap!
Tweet, post, Facebook, e-mail, stumble, write, research, work work work... Oh yeah... breastfeed and take care of the other kid hanging around the house. Almost forgot about her!
Laundry, Diapers, Work...
MORE COFFEE
Pack Up The Kids Again...
Photo Credit: Flickr
Bath Time & Bed Time
Late Night Work
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Read more on Toddler Times from Danielle:
Should Pre-School Be Free?
5 Parenting New Years Resolutions
Will My Daughter’s Helmet Teach my Toddler Acceptance?
That sounds like no fun. At all.
I am a full time work at home mom and have a part time job out of the home…going to “work” outside the home is like a Hawaiian vacation compared to having to work at home with kids in tow…GAH!
Thanks Sherman! Yes, there are compelling rosneas why moms everywhere want to work at home. The problem is most of them don’t know where to start, & where they do think they have found something worthwhile, there is the possibilty they will get scammed in some way.By making information available I am hoping to help educated moms about the right ways to go about finding the right home business.
Oh my goodness. I couldn’t have found this post at a better time. I am not alone! This sounds like my crazy day, and I only have one toddler. You go mama! Thanks for sharing and making me feel like a normal human being