The hardest part of working from home...

I've been a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) for almost eight years now.  What did you say?  You mean to say that on most days you sit at your kitchen counter, in flip flops, an old tee shirt and (sometimes) just your underpants on and you WORK?  I thought that being a SAHM meant that you're chasing toddlers around the house with your hair semi-pined back with 'hello kitty' barrettes and wiping up spilled anything for the umpteenth time and urging your daughter that even though her toothpaste is called 'Silly Strawberry' that it is not breakfast from a squeeze tube, 'believe Mommy when I say that there is no nutritional value in toothpaste!'   

Being a SAH-working-M includes all of the above and more.  Let me back it up once again, EVEN if you solely take care of your darling children, that's WORK my fellow Mama!  Okay so maybe you don't get paid by an employer for it but it's sure a heck of a lot more work than anyone could ever afford to pay you.  Agree?  If you're a Mom who stays home to take care of your children YOU ARE WORKING.  If you are a Mom who works outside of the home, that's HARD WORK too.  I know, I did that too! Either way you look at it, the flip side is not easier or better.  It's simply hard.

Really, there is no price for caring for your own children.  Having been home for nearly eight years now all I can say is that I really, really, really LOVE it.  Am I tired?  YES.  Am I grateful?  YES.  Am I on the verge of %#&*#%@%?  YES.  Am I in total LOVE with my children and can't get enough of them even when they are sound asleep? YES.

BUT (and here it comes!) the hardest part of working from home is the juggling of things.  It's extremely difficult to square off time to do 'work' and the other part which is 'tending to your children' throughout the day.  So what do you?  Well, its complicated.  A whole lot of planning goes into the 'juggling' aspect of it all.  The options are:  Hire help?, Ask for 'free' family help?, Stay up til 2am and hyper dose on coffee the next day?, Sneak in spurts of time here and there?  Answer: Ding, ding, ding, ding! All of the above.  What?  Yes, you read that correctly.  More importantly is the learning to say 'no' to people who may want to visit you at any given hour of the day because 'Oh, Vanessa, no she doesn't WORK, she's home ALL day.'  If they only knew just how wildly different my perspective is (smile).

Just the other day my Mom sent me a text asking if she could 'pass by' and I responded with a friendly 'nope, I finally have a house free of three children and it's finally quiet enough to get some work done.'  That same day my MIL had graciously offered to take all three of my daughters to her house for the ENTIRE afternoon.  What?! You better believe that I was fired up about that offer.  A quiet house for nearly five hours! Yippie! Yes, this is what us SAHM's that work for pay in our lovely abode have been reduced to.  We dream of peace and quiet even if it's simply for thirty minutes.  Crazy, I know but it is what it is.

No situation is a perfect situation.  The moms who stay at home complain of all the 'house work, child-care, zero time to ourselves', yada,yada, yada.  I know, that's ME! And the moms who leave to work complain of 'not enough time with their children, the rat race, the guilt of not being there for the mundane moments of their child's day', yada, yada, yada.  So you see, both are HARD.  All I can say is this, hats off to both sides of the coin.  We are ALL hard working Mamas and we all deserve credit for what we do.  Now go get a pedicure and forget the laundry for today!

♥ Vanessa

'Motherhood has a very humanizing effect.  Everything gets reduced to essentials'- Meryl Streep