LOL! It's really really hard. Im not going to lie. Everyone tells me they dont know how I do it. Well I do. Im always running around, stressed out, dont have ANY me time and my house isnt perfect.
My schedule is 40 hrs a week... but our inventory for work has been so high that they have been requesting 50 hr weeks from us since like Thanksgiving. Let me working 50 hrs a week makes me appreciate every minute of my vacation days!!
Kaili goes to school Monday-Friday to a private preschool at the church by our house. She goes 930am-130pm. She LOVES it there!
I got Alana on a schedule early on once my maternity leave was up. As soon as we get home from taking Kaili to school Alana goes down for a nap and she'll sleep from about 10am-1pm so I get a lot of work done in that time.
I get up early and work like an hour before they are up or while they are sitting in here eating breakfast.
After Kaili gets home from school she wants a snack and Alana wants lunch. (Kaili eats lunch at school). So they sit in here and watch some cartoons and eat and I work while they do that.
Then they play in Kaili's room for a long while. They fight a lot but they also play well together when they arent fighting.
I work while they play. And I get up from my desk 2,000 times to tell them to quit fighting over whatever it is. Usually it's Kaili picking on Alana.
Then around 5pm I take them outside to play until Wayne gets home (630pm). Once he gets home I take them inside and make dinner. Or Wayne will make dinner. If he is making dinner then I'll sit down and work more while the girls do whatever around here. They talk to Wayne or play more in Kaili's room.
After dinner I give them a bath and put them to bed. And then I work til about 10pm or 11pm depending on how much I got done during that particular day.
I really wish I could be a SAHM, but we'd have to give up a lot of stuff that we enjoy doing as a family. On the weekends we spend all of our time together so it makes up for not doing much out and about stuff during the week.
My house suffers during the week. It's a constant mess no matter how much I run around picking up
I usually spend the weekend mornings or nights cleaning a whole lot.
I know it's hard right now but I think it will be worth it in the long run when the kids are in school all day and I can still have a flexible schedule and bring home a nice income for our family. kwim?
Its not just cutting back on groceries for me to quit. Wayne actually makes good money for this area so I dont know how so many people live off one income and still do so many things! We'd be SO broke!
Ive worked for this company for over 9 years. So I have a regular salary and I hold all the medical/dental/vision benefits for our family and I get 5 1/2 weeks paid time off now plus holidays. So it's a good job that I want to hold on to.
It works for us! But it's really hard! We dont really get any help from our families so if you have your parents or ILs to help that would be nice.
My MIL has come over a couple times to watch the girls when I had a conference call or training call to attend. But lately she's tied up a lot so Wayne & I have been working it out between the two of us. :/
So I would say, just prepare yourself for it to be very hard! Something had to be sacrificed so for me, my house does. It's not disgusting. It's just not model home looking if you popped in at my door on a random day.
And try to get on some kind of schedule. That really helped with Alana being home. She starts school with Kaili in August. Then the baby will be here in late December. I dont know how it will work out once our third is here.
I will be on 8 weeks of maternity leave so ask me about all of this again in March 2009.