Thursday, August 13, 2009

Striking The Balance


I have a feeling I know the "ah ha" moment a professional photographer feels when she knows she's captured the perfect shot. When I got lucky enough to catch Claire and Lily peering out the holes in the playground slide at the same time, I knew I had it. I love this photo.

We had a good day here. I worked until the wee hours last night so I could blow off work this morning and take the kids to Waffle House and the park (note to self: take Molly to the park after lunch, not before, as I tried both this morning and now know which works). Molly had a slightly bad park accident but otherwise we enjoyed the morning. By 1pm the twins were down for a 3-hour nap, I was on a conference call, and a 15-year-old neighbor was making her debut babysitting event with us. She stayed for the next five hours (probably more than I needed her), but with her help I was blessed with 2 1/2 straight hours of work time without one interruption. It was truly amazing. Unfortunately, I'm still stuck with some work tasks for tonight too, but that is the daily balance I strike in this work-from-home arrangement.

I also jettisoned all home tasks today so I could focus on work ... no cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, nothing. Sometimes in striking the work/life balance I have to forgo a clean house and home-cooked meal.

The twins have figured out the word "me" as of today. I was helping Molly retrieve a toy, and she looked at me and said, "Momma! Me!" as she pointed at herself: mommy, I want to do it! So I stopped helping and she seemed overly pleased she had gotten her point across. Lily was listening to Molly use the term today, so she too used it correctly once herself. Lily also decided to use the term "yuck" at dinner (which annoyed me), but then again, I'd figure it to be my finicky eater to first use that word at the dinner table.

Tomorrow: another WFH day, the 15-year-old new babysitter is returning to help with a 30-minute conference call, and then I plan to allow Claire's best friend Lauren to play at our house tomorrow afternoon. It's a stretch to think I'll get much work done tomorrow. So it's about time I sign off here and go power up the work laptop.

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