It’s hard enough to get going some mornings, but even if you have only one child to check up on, and even if your mornings are a piece of cake, there’s still homework, projects, extra curricular activities, household chores, and bedtime to deal with. Ideally, you want your kids to eventually take responsibility for these things themselves, but until then, how do you stay on top of it all? Especially given that you need to get yourself ready and out the door, often at the same time?
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I love to cook. When I was in college, after a stressful day of juggling jobs and school I’d come home and cook, the same way other kids would go out and drink. My roommates used to say they could tell what type of day I’d had just by looking at what was on the stove at 1 a.m. (which is when I got home from work, and settled in to study).

I still love to cook, but now that I’m juggling jobs and a family I have less time — not to mention way less energy — than I had when I was in college. And right now, with the economy still tight and my budget even tighter, cooking at home isn’t just therapy, it’s necessary.
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The other night, I was sitting in my family room, TV on, my husband at his desk in the corner, tapping away on his laptop. I settled down on the couch, reached for my own computer, and realized… I didn’t have any work to do.

Here’s the sad part: I didn’t really know what to do with myself. Watch TV? I mean actually, really, pay attention to what’s on the screen at the other end of the room? Read a book that I’m not reviewing? Write an extra blog post or two?
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I went in to work crazy-early yesterday, so that I could leave crazy-early and meet up with an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in far too long. A coworker stopped by my desk as I was packing up, and so I explained what was going on.

She gasped. “You’re… actually doing something FOR YOURSELF?”

I immediately felt a little guilty. And sheepish. Until I looked her in the eye and saw that she was actually cheering me on.
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Like so many people I know, I went and bought a copy of the most popular work-out DVD of the moment, 30 Day Shred. It’s sitting on top of the TV console, still in the shrink wrap.

I want to get in shape. OK, I need to get in shape. But not because of a desire to look better in a bathing suit or because my 20th reunion is rapidly approaching — those both of those things are actually true. I want to get in shape because my lovely, fawn-like, reed-thin 4 1/2-year-old daughter hugged me a few weeks ago and said, “Mama, you should run around more. So you can get un-fat.”

Out of the mouths of babes, right?
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What I was doing yesterday: Working from home.

What I my day was really like yesterday: Fed breakfast to 4 children, fed the dog, dressed 2 children, made 4 lunches, packed 3 backpacks, did 2 children’s hair, dropped 1 child at camp and 2 children at preschool, bought groceries, bought cold and flu medication at the drug store, put away the groceries, edited 2 articles, emptied the dishwasher, reloaded the dishwasher, went to the craft store after finding out (when I dropped 1 child at camp) that tomorrow the group will be doing tie-dye, and I had no articles of white anything, worked a little more, scrubbed the kitchen floor, prepped dinner, picked up 3 children from various location, took 1 sick teenager to the doctor (diagnosis: pneumonia, and boy is she pissed), made dinner. 

What I feel like I should’ve been doing, since I was at home anyway: laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming the rest of the house, stripping the sheets, remaking the beds, cleaning off the kitchen counters, putting away the mountain of shoes in the entry way, picking up the toys from the floor of the family room, taking the clothes I culled out of the kids’ closets months ago to the Salvation Army, donating the old toys, and feeling guilty because 1 child complained that “it’s sooooooo *dirty* in here!”

What didn’t get done yesterday: Enough work.

I’m sure you can relate. So please share: what did you do yesterday? What didn’t get done? 

I try to watch what my kids watch, which means that the commercials I sit through are geared mostly either to kids (Toys! Games! Candy!) or to moms (Body wash! Convenience foods! Cleaning products!). Or, I should say, “moms,” because really, a commercial pitched to directly me, and most of the working moms I know, would involve wine and sleep.
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The other night, I was faced with a kitchen-full of dirty dishes. And pots. And pans. At midnight.

I was already tired. I had been up late working, and I’d gotten up early, too, thanks to my 2 1/2-year-old alarm clock of a son who wakes at 5:30 a.m. (and who obviously didn’t read my post about how I prefer to stay up late rather than get up early). But the kitchen was a wreck, it’s hot and humid outside and, as such, bug season, and call me crazy, but I cannot stand having anything with more than two legs in the kitchen, and that includes the dog.
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I’ve always been a night owl. When I was a kid, I hung a small dry-erase noteboard and a pen next to my bed, so I could doodle when I couldn’t sleep (reading after lights out was not allowed). As a college student, I found it easier not to go to bed at all some nights than to get up early for class or work. And when I was in my 20s, I was working nights — I slept until 10 a.m. in order to get seven hours of sleep, not because I was sleeping in. It was always easier to stay up late to finish (or start) my work than it was to get up early.
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The speculation has been rampant since Sarah Palin announced Friday that she will be stepping down as governor of Alaska.

After her time in the national spotlight with Senator John McCain, she didn’t seem interested in running a state, The Asssociated Press suggested. Being governor during a recession — and when there are 15 ethics charges and budgeting squabbles hanging over your head — is a chore, Slate.com quipped. She says she doesn’t want to “embrace Lame Duck status,” even though the next election is 16 months away, Ed Morrissey points out at Hot Air.

But it’s probably best to consider what Palin herself said about her decision: “Life is too short to compromise time and resources. It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along… but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out.”

As a working mom who compromises her time and resources daily, I beg to differ.
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