I really want to tell you…
1) Working from home has been more difficult. I am not always adept at juggling the mom-work thing. Most of the time lately, I feel like like I’m failing at everything and drowning. This might have something to do with the fact that I’m coming off of several months of pregnancy-induced fatigue and nausea. I didn’t cook, clean, or do much of anything aside from the bare minimum. It’s hard to recover from, you know? And to get anything done while Gabe is at home (aka: the last three weeks) I pretty much have to throw a screen or food at him or be interrupted every thirty seconds, which isn’t so conducive to, well, anything. I am not one to feel guilty, but I have been feeling so guilty about all of it lately. I just feel not enough about pretty much everything I’m doing. Just call me Ms. Sunshine!
2) Work is steadily, and happily!, increasing. The funny thing about freelance work for me is that it either seems to be flowing at a drip-drip-drip rate or a fire hose rate. No matter how hard I try to space projects out, time things well, it’s still an avalanche of work or very sparse. Someday I’ll become a pro at navigating that, right? (Ha. Not right.) Come to think of it, this might be related to #1.
3) Last weekend, we traveled to Madison, Wisconsin and thought were going to die in a snow storm. If you’re paying attention to me on Twitter or Instagram, you saw how we had to pull off the highway when a snow storm in Indiana at 9 pm suddenly the road covered in a thick sheet of snow and gave us a visibility of less than 10 feet. It was terrifying. We stopped for an hour at a gas station that had a restaurant and waited for the storm to pass. It didn’t pass and the restaurant was closing. We thought our last meal would be french fries dipped in this gross cheese sauce, so we decided to just find a hotel a few miles away and stay there instead of 4 more hours to Madison for the hotel we’d already paid for. I actually got travel insurance for this very purpose (snow affecting travel plans), which reminds me I need to figure that out. The trip was less-than-stellar, unfortunately. We loved Madison (well, I might have mostly loved that the hotel had fancy treadmills and that I could get Pad Thai delivered at 10 pm), but the rest of the trip was a comedy in bad timing – we arrived a day late thanks to a snow storm and had to leave a day early to avoid another snow storm.
Winter, amiright?
4) I want to redesign both my work website and this blog again. My own websites used to be my playground where I could tinker away for hours on end and try out new ideas and techniques. Now I’m a little more limited on time (thanks a lot, Gabriel), so I tend to focus on paying work and sweep my own stuff under the rug to deal with later. This is sad. I want to make everything prettier.
5) To end on a happy note: I have been feeling tiny baby kicks (squee!), I have three sets of plans this weekend (social!), and…I like food again. I’ve eaten three pounds of potatoes in three days. So, specifically potato-based food (with ketchup).
It’s tough with a toddler. But I wouldn’t sweat the screen/food alternative, as long as you balance it out with some time directly with him, which I’m sure you are. I used to work from home 3 days a week (with the other 2 in the office). I didn’t have child care of any kind and it was really tough….really tough. I just about felt like I worked all day and all night, because I’d be online all day, distracted, but on line nonetheless. And then after he’d go to bed for the night, I’d be online doing all the focused work I didn’t do all day when I was so distracted. It was toooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhh.
But you muddle through. That you managed the bare minimum and still worked and kept Gabriel fed and all in one piece is a testament to your resilience. Because, as you said, you were in the early days of pregnancy fatigue on top of every thing else. THAT ALONE = bare minimum getting done!!
I’m glad you’re eating again. That should probably help! But give yourself a break, you deserve it!
P.S. Shoot, how many times did I use the word “tough”? LOL…..
But it was, it was tough.
(Wouldn’t have changed it for the world though. Those years were the best, being home with my boy. I’m so glad I was able to manage it, really I am. I amaze myself, when I really think about it, ha!!)
Yes! This is how I feel – like I’m working all the time, but getting nothing done.
Also, no child care?! Amazing. Can’t imagine!
Yes! Imagine conference calls with the baby in the background. Mute button!!
If I had to do it all over again, I would spring for some kind of mother’s helper for at least a couple of hours. (Although…. funny story: I did try that, twice. But clearly the girls I found were too young. The first one was an eighth grader, and I had her stop coming finally after one day standing at the counter scooping ice cream into 2 cones — one for her and one for my son — and thought “wait a minute, something’s not right here”….like, now I have two kids I’m getting snacks for and watching outside, etc? The second one was high school age, but was late every time she came, and then we’d get into debate about why I didn’t pay her for the 3 hours I hired her for. So painful: ummm, you weren’t here 3 hours, honey. (She must have thought she was salaried, LOL). I even had to get on the phone with her mother the first time. I was like “I know I said I’d pay her for 3 hours, but that’s because I thought she was going to be here for 3 hours. As she was an hour late , she was here 2 hours, so I’m only paying her for 2 hours.” (It was weird)
Another crazy anecdote: later, during marriage counseling, my ex complained to the therapist about how I was “always on the computer” and how I was always so tired but then I’d be online at night instead of going to sleep at a reasonable hour ??!?!??!?!?!?!?!? I remember being like, EXCUSE ME?! Clearly someone wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on. Can you imagine?
No! OMG. Those girls sound like nightmares! It pains me since I looooved babysitting when I was in middle and high school and was really responsible about it. Ha. I would love something like that – but in a 1200 sq ft 2 bedroom apartment, there’s not many places to go in the winter. Although I can always leave to go to the coffee shop one block away!
(And – HA! So the income you were bringing in working was just ignored? Oh dear. Think it’s fun to stay up late on your computer? Nope. ;))
Stop beating yourself up!!
It is what it is….be at peace…everything else will catchup later….blessings..
I was following your adventures last weekend and can I say, winter just blows. I’m glad you went the travel insurance route at least!
Also, I really think the work from home thing is going to get better now that you are feeling better. Honestly I can’t imagine how you would get anything done in the first trimester of pregnancy. It was summer for me and i was only working a few hours a day and yet I still could not manage to clean anything, do any dishes and just in general be a productive member of society at all during that time. I can’t even imagine taking care of another kid at that time.
The first trimester with Gabe was waaaay easier. I could nap more than I can now when I got home from work (second child problem) and at work, I could half-ass things if need be. ;) Now, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid! It’s more stressful. But worth it. :)
I wanted to comment because Madison is my town :) This winter has been a crazy cold one so far- I’m anxiously awaiting temps of 50 degrees and up!
I totally get the itch to want to improve your websites. I’m a mere amateur tinkler, but once I learn something new, it seems to open up doors to learning lots of other new things … and next thing you know, it’s a website overhaul. I can only imagine what that’s like for you, someone who has made this your business.
On that note, you do know this time management thing isn’t going to get better with baby #2 fast approaching, right? M’kay, just making sure. =)