We have Adlee who just turned 1 on June 18th. My job is a big part of our family income and I have great insurance that I provide for our family. So me being able to stay home with Adlee was not really an option for us.
I work at the University of Illinois in Research Administration. My husband is a Middle School Principal. When he got the job a couple of years ago, the job required him to live in district, so we had to move. Before we moved, I was 10 minutes from work. Now I am a good 45 minutes. So, I have an hour and a half in the car every day for my commute. I call my Mom every day on my way to work and I sometimes make other phone calls either on my way to work or on my way home. Although my husband is a Principal and works in education, most think that he has summers off, he does not, he works the majority of the summer, as he is on a 12 month contract, but takes some vacation time during the summer. The summer is a lot more lax than the regular school year but he still stays busy. Him and I work together as a great team in providing Adlee with adequate time and attention. Although I always wish I had more time with her, since I can't seem to get enough of her!
Our day typically starts at 6 when we get out of bed. Actually, it really depends on what time our dogs decide to get up and flip their ears, which they seem to have a built in alarm clock that is around 5:15. Jeremy is an early riser so he gets up with them while I get to sleep a little bit longer. He usually takes his shower first and then I get up at 6 to take mine. I have to leave the house by 7:15 to drop Adlee off at daycare and get to work by 8:30. I typically sit and talk to her sitter for about 5-10 minutes. Adlee often wakes up right at 6 when I am getting up, so I will go get her out of bed and change her diaper and give her milk while Jeremy finishes up getting ready. Then when I am done with that, she and Daddy will go downstairs and play while I have a chance to get ready. I really do not have much time with her in the mornings at all. My work day lasts until 5. Which then will get me home around 5:45. However, if Jeremy has a school obligation, I leave work at 4 to pick Adlee up from daycare at 5. He typically picks her up from daycare, however, during the school year we take turns since he does have obligations of evening activities.
We are fortunate enough that her sitter feeds her breakfast so we don't worry about that right now in the mornings. Her sitter also lives around the corner from us.
Jeremy is really good about unloading the dishwasher in the mornings since I don't have much time. If he does not do it in the mornings then one of us typically does it in the evenings.
Like I said we are out the door at 7:15.
I run a lot of errands during the week over my lunch hour. I get a full hour for lunch and I get a lot done. Not like I can go home for lunch. Most of the time, my lunch hours consist of running to Wal-mart or Target for things we need, balancing our checkbook and writing out bills (yes I am old school and do not do online bill pay), I often times do some quick blog posts, I will also have lunch with my girlfriends. This is the time when I get to see my girlfriends as we are all so busy with kids activities and such.
On a normal day when I work until 5, I get home at 5:45. Jeremy picks Adlee up from daycare and gets her dinner before I get home. She is usually ready to eat by the time they get home or around 5 or 5:15. I love days that I get to leave work at 4 so then I can feed her dinner. Jeremy is also good at getting our dinner ready and having it ready for when I get home so then after dinner I can play with Adlee or go for a walk with her until it is time for her bath and bed time.
We try to be good and plan our meals with this magnetic weekly meal planner. It is nice to have for meal planning. Typically during the week, he will grill for us or we will have something easy such as spaghetti, tacos, salads, soup and grilled cheese, breakfast wraps, sometimes even just cereal or cheese and crackers.
Adlee starts to get tired around 7. For the summer months we have been trying to keep her up a little longer, so I can spend more time with her when I get home from work and we can go for walks and not feel rushed. We both share in her bathtime. We give her a bath every night to wash the germs off of her and to relax her before bed. After bath time, I give her milk, then we brush her teeth, I also rock her a little bit and often times read her a book. She is typically in bed by 8.
By this time I am exhausted from a full days work and just now sitting down. Jeremy and I will watch TV at this time, have computer time, or if we have something that needs to be done for the following day, get things done. We are typically in bed no later than 10:00.
Regarding cleaning, we have hired a cleaning lady to come to our house every 2 weeks. It is the best money we spend and she does an excellent job. I do not want to spend my weekends cleaning the house and taking time away from Adlee. We do pick up every morning and night and I do some cleaning in between but I typically do not have to do much. Another arrangment my husband and I have is I take care of the inside (although he still helps with things on the inside) and he takes care of the outside. I am not much of a taking care of the lawn and flowers person so he takes on that responsibility and it works out great for us.
We both do our own laundry and I do Adlee's laundry. Typically we do laundry on one of the weekend days.
Some things I am struggling with right now is finding time for exercise. My husband and I both exercised very regularly before we had the baby and now finding time is a struggle. Since I do work at the University of Illinois, I am participating in an interesting research study right now. A girl in the department of Exercise Psychology is finishing up her dissertation and is doing a study on the physical activity in working mothers. This could not have come at a better time since I am struggling at fitting the time in. I have met with a trainer that has given me workouts to do with resistance bands over my lunch hour by placing them in my office door. She has also provided me with other exercises to do in my office. The study is nice because you can brainstorm with other working moms and get ideas from one another. A friend in my office is doing the same study so her and I are going to buddy up and try to take walks every day and push each other to do better.
My husband and I also would like to be better about attending church. Since we are fairly new to the community we are still looking for a church.
I saw on Melissa's Working Mom post that she needs to write in the baby book. I too need to do that and I need to organize all my pictures. I also have a little side business of making little girls hairbows and right now I am basically just doing orders for friends as I have to build my supply back up. Hopefully on a free weekend during naptime I can get my supply built back up. So that is a goal of mine as well.
I have also purchased this book that I had seen on Facebook that a few Mom's in the area have purchased. I have not read too far into it yet but am anxious to read it while we are on vacation in a couple of weeks.
We are in a pretty good routine right now. There are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done. My husband and I just got Smart phones so we are still learning how to use them but we are both excited about options that are available such as having our calendars on the phone, being able to access our email without having to be on our computer constantly.
If anyone has any questions please feel free to comment or email me at Deelucie@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you and appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this series on Melissa's blog.
