When I was growing up, my mom was a stay at home mom. Every day she took care of us kids. She cooked, cleaned, took us to school, play dates, doctor appointments all while my dad was at work. All my friend’s moms were also staying at home moms. When I was younger, I always figured that I would do the same thing as my mom. I thought that I would get married, have kids and be home with them. Somewhere along the way, my plans changed. I went to college, got a degree, a job and oh yeah… lots of student loans. By the time I got married, my husband and I knew we had to take on the loans first before we could start a family. We ended up paying off the loans and working very hard at our jobs. By the time we moved to Las Vegas, we both finally had good jobs and it felt good.
After Jack was born, there was never a question of whether I would go back to work or not. After an 8-week maternity leave, I returned to work ready to get into a new routine of being a working mom. It was defiantly an adjustment for me at first. Mornings took me a little extra time to get ready, I was very tired and then there was the whole breastfeeding a pumping routine I had to get used to. After a while, things just started to flow.
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| After work snuggles were always the best when Jack was really little. Now he’s too big and just wants to play. |
Now, after being back at work for well over a year, I feel like I kind of have this working mom thing figured out. I have a really good routine and I try to stay on a schedule the best that I can. The major thing that has changed in my life is that I don’t have as much free time as I used to. I honestly don’t know what I did with all that time that I used to have before becoming a mom. I guess I used to cook and binge-watch shows on Netflix, but not anymore. Nowadays, when I get a little break from work and mommy duties, I usually spend my time cleaning or working on my blog.
When it comes to my job, I often struggle, because I feel like I’m not as good of a teacher as I used to be. This past year was hard because Jack has been sick with ear infections or teething really badly. When he’s sick, I have to stay home or leave work early to be with him. Sometimes I feel like I don’t put as much effort into my job as a teacher as much as I used to, but after Jack was born I told myself that I wasn’t going to bring my work home with me anymore. I try to keep work at work so I can focus on my family when I’m home. My job is important to me, so I work hard during my work hours, but I always tell myself that I’m a mother first.
I used to feel guilty about working and leaving my baby, but now that Jack’s a little older, my thoughts have changed. He loves going to his school every day. He loves his teachers and friends. I’m always impressed with how much he is learning. I’d like to be home with him at times, but I would feel very pressured to keep him busy and active every day. Plus he wouldn’t get all the social interaction that he gets at school. Since he has no siblings or cousins his age, that socialization he gets from school is very important.
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| Sometimes my class gets a visit from the famous baby Jack. |
| On top of my job, I also have my blog, which has pretty much turned into a second job that I don’t make a real income from. I started blogging for fun, but the longer I keep writing, the more my goals change. The only difficult thing for me with blogging is that I don’t always have time for the other things associated with it. When it comes to writing a new post every week I have no problem with that, but then there’s keeping up with all my social media accounts, my e-mails, networking and it makes me sad how many invitations I have to turn down to blogging events. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. The great thing about my blog is that it’s for me, so there’s no real pressure or deadlines from anyone else but myself. I tell myself to do what I can and just have fun with it.
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| I love hanging out in Jack’s room after work, trying to sneak in some snuggles from my busy boy. |
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| Bath time is always our special time |
So there you have it. My life is super busy. People always ask me how I do it all and I just say, I just do it. I blog because I enjoy it, I work, because it’s my income and I give as much as I can to my little guy, because I love him more than anything in the word. My husband and I have discussed the possibility of me staying at home if and when another baby comes a long, but that’s in the future. Right now, I’m a working mom.
