finding the right work from home balance

In my previous life as a corporate director of sales and marketing I worked out of a home based office. Or at least that is what my job description said. In reality, I was rarely in my home office. I was usually traveling Tuesday through Thursday, often away from home overnight, and when I was in my office I could almost always be found with the phone strapped to my ear on a conference call. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I frequently had calls that would last for 6 hours. Thank goodness for the mute button is all I'm saying... I was always working.

When I left that position I took a year off to stay home and help my new little one adjust to life in America, life in a family, life with a Mommy and Daddy. It was an unplanned year, as many of you know. I was supposed to take the position I have now but it was put on hold for a year. And while at the time it may have led to some panic at the thought of going from a corporate salary to no salary, it was, in fact, the best thing I could have done for my little family. As always, God had a plan and I just needed to let it happen. And while my little one is not yet quite where he needs to be, he is so much further along than he would have been had I been working that whole time.

So when I took this new position a few months ago I thought the transition would be easy, because I had already been working from home. I could not have been more wrong.

Now I am home for nearly 100% of my work life. I get out to visit our partners a few times a month, or to attend a networking event, but for the most part, I am here, in my office, every single day. Because of the nature of my work, and the fact that I work with families, the hours I work are quite varied.  I can work during the day, I can work in the evenings, I can work weekend and holidays. I can make a hot breakfast for my boys, and sit down and eat it with them. I drop the boys off at daycare and school every day, take my time, talk to their teachers, and still have time to work. I can pick up my boys after school, play with them, talk about their day, make dinner, eat it with them, and then, a few nights a week, pop back into my office for a few hours. Nice, right?

Sure, on paper it all looks great. But my boys get weird if they don't have what they consider to be "enough" time with their mommy. And their definition of "enough" is "all the time". If they are not in school or asleep then they just don't understand why they can't have my undivided attention.  They whine and cry when I head back upstairs to work, no matter how full I have filled their little attention buckets. (I LOVE Positive Parenting Solutions!). Sometimes it is like I am at the zoo, literally pushing small arms and legs out of the office so I can close, and lock, the door. Daddy takes them back downstairs and everyone, including me, is left in tears. Sigh.  So it's not as easy as it looks, and we have a long way to go to make it run more smoothly for our family. But the other day someone asked me for advice on working from home, so here it is, my advice:

• Turn your workstation off every night. It takes a few minutes to power up and turn everything on, which I don't have in the morning as I am starting my day. If everything is already powered up then it is very easy for you to just pop into your office and check your email, plan your day... when you should be spending time with you family. Work time is work time and family time is family time. I can't just pop into my office in the morning on my way to the little one's crib - powering down reminds me to be fully focused on the matter at hand, my boys.
• Plan your hours carefully so that you don't accidentally start working too early. I know, sounds crazy, but with no commute it is very easy to go straight to work. I find that if I go straight to my office after returning home from dropping off the boys then I run out of day and don't have enough time to do all the household management stuff that can easily get out of hand if not tended to every day. Many times I have walked into the kitchen for lunch only to see breakfast still sitting there, waiting to be cleaned up. How disheartening! With a little planning you can take the time you need to complete your morning routine without feeling guilty about not working. God, Family, Work, people. Always. I need to clean up breakfast, drink a cup of coffee while it is actually still hot, check my email, pray, start a load of laundry, and then I am ready to start my work day. Some people center themselves during their commute. I use 20 minutes before walking up the stairs.
• Take your lunch break for you, not for your house. I have to force myself to do this and, I must admit, I don't always do it, but it is so important for your sanity to take your lunch break for yourself. If you were working in an office building across town you wouldn't be thinking about the housework that needs done while you ate your lunch. So don't think it about it now. Taking your lunch time to eat, take a walk, listen to music, play a computer game- whatever energizes you is what you have to do to make it through the rest of your day. Put that guilt away- it is helping no one!
• Back to planning your hours- make sure you stop working in enough time so that you can focus on what needs done for your family. I set a timer and try very hard to finish my work on time so that I can walk away from my office and back into wife and mommy mode. Having an hour to myself before picking up the boys is invaluable. I can start dinner, set the table, tidy up the downstairs or make a quick pass through the upstairs. I have time to bring up the laundry I started in the morning and get it folded and into the boy's individual baskets for them to carry up to their rooms later. This way, when I pick up my boys, they are my only focus. They deserve my time.
• Let your spouse help. Now I know that your idea of a clean living room doesn't include a few scattered toys or cups laying about. But imagine how messy it was before he helped the kids clean up! I want my sweet husband to help out around the house, but it drives me crazy when he doesn't do it the way I would. Or when he doesn't do it at all. So now I make lists. I feel this is nagging but he asked for it, literally, and it really has made a huge difference in our home. He wants to help. He wants me to work. He wants me to contribute to the financial stability of our family, yet he also understands the importance of my being here for our boys. You may have to remind your spouse of why you work where and when you do, but also help him along with a little list or two, if needed. My husband knows that if I am working in the evening I expect dinner to be cleaned up, (and NOT just stacked in the sink!), the boys to be bathed, and at least the tiny toddler in bed. If I need more from him, like the trash or recycling taken out, the dishwasher emptied, etc., then I have to tell him. And once I do tell him, I have to let go. He is an adult, he can handle it.
• And speaking of letting go- you also have to let go of the childcare. There are moments, like earlier this morning, when I can hear total chaos happening downstairs. At times i can hear frustration in my husband's voice, or one of my boys crying. I can hear what sounds like elephants running through my kitchen - my boys play hard! I want to know what is happening down there- my heart aches thinking something is going wrong, or someone isn't happy. But my husband is not babysitting, he is parenting. And maybe he doesn't always parent the way I would, but these are his kids too and he needs the time to figure it out for himself.
• Keep your office as your office. It's not the room where everything that doesn't have a home gets dumped. It is your sacred work space. Our home office is shared by my husband and myself,  and I learned a few years back that the only way this was going to work was with separate desks. My husband has an office to go to every day, and so his desk at home is cluttered with bills and papers from the on the side accounting work he does. Which is fine, he doesn't work there every day. But I do. I was finding my work papers moved, or scribbled on as my sweet husband searched for a piece of paper to write a note on. Matching smaller desks set up facing each other solved our shared space problem. My desk is now mine alone, and I feel as though I am walking into a real work space every day.

It is both  hard and easy, this working from home gig. I know it will get easier as my boys grow older and can amuse themselves. But right now, when they seem to think that I am their lifeline and that they simply can't live without me, it is hard. It is a struggle to maintain the proper work/life balance and to focus on what I need to focus on. If I am working when the boys are clamoring for my attention I feel guilty. If I am spending time with my boys when I know I have a ton of work to finish, I feel guilty. If I spend all my free time with my boys because of the aforementioned guilt then I feel guilty for the time not spent with my husband. Add in the adoption guilt we adoptive parents carry around and the "I want to be a 50's housewife but just can't do it all alone" guilt and some days I am surprised that there is room in my brain for anything else. I remember fondly the days we had outside help cleaning our home and think that this may be the way we need to go in the near future. I don't know. I certainly don't have all the answers. But I can tell you this. When I am working on a weekend and my tiny toddler has been settled into his crib for his nap by my sweet husband, I am reminded again of how much I value being able to have this amazing work/life balance. As I hear him sing himself to sleep through our shared wall, or name the members of his family, (something new he has just started doing, "Mommy, Zhao, Daddy, Mommy, Zhao, Daddy..."), my heart is so full. And that is why we all strive to find the balance, right?

two successes and one rough night

Thanks to not sleeping very well lately I have had lots of time to think. OK, you got me, I have had lots of time to play solitaire on my iPhone. But sometimes I think. Last night I thought. I thought about what we can do to make the transition of me working from home, sometimes on the weekends, easier for my boys. Easier for all three of my boys. Easier for my husband, who needs to keep the little ones busy and active. And easier for the little ones, who know that Mommy is right upstairs and seem to be just treading water as they wait to hear the office door open. And, let's face it, easier for me, too. So we have some work to do there. We'll figure it out.

I wandered downstairs in the middle of the night and then I found myself wondering why the kitchen floor was so sticky. The floor that I scrubbed twice last week and then used the robotic floor cleaner, who we have named Bob,  on every other night. Except last night, because I never went back downstairs after the drama of putting the tiny toddler to bed. And, not to be outdone, the kitchen table was sticky as well. The big five year old's flip flops were peaking in at me from the back porch and a half gallon empty bottle of bubble solution was in the bathroom sink. So I had a lot to think about.
What the heck went on down here last night?

But none of that matters. Even the crazy bedtime last night isn't important. Here is what I really should be thinking about...

I volunteered in the nursery at church yesterday morning. A few days before this I started telling the tiny toddler that I would be working in the nursery with him. And every time I told him, he clapped and cheered. He truly wanted me there with him. He really is a little too old for the nursery- our church offers Sunday school starting as young as two years old, so, at three, he really should be attending that class and not hanging out with the babies in the nursery. I hadn't tried to transition him to this class yet, though, because a little guy can only handle so much change at one time. But yesterday the nursery coordinator asked him if he wanted to go to Sunday school, he said "yes", and off they went, hand in hand. When I went to pick him up he was hanging out in the middle of a group of kids, popping bubble wrap, which, let's face it, is everyones' favorite thing to do! Success! That's what I should be thinking about!

And here's the biggest weekend success of all. My husband and I went out Saturday night for our small group couples dinner/bible study, and we used a new sitter that the kids had never met before. I knew all was well when I called home partway through the evening and the sitter told me that they had put together the pirate hats I had left for them to make, she was wearing hers, and she was, and I quote, "rockin it." They boys loved her and had a great night. They next morning, yesterday, I went in to wake up the tiny toddler for church. After we played our daily game where he rolls to the far end of his crib where I can't reach and and then pretends he is a cat,  I finally managed to grab him and give him a big hug, telling him that I missed him the night before. He smiled and hugged me back and then told me all about his night while I got him dressed. "Hat", he said, pointing to his head. "ball" he said, pointing the window. (Seeing as no windows were broken I assumed he was pointing outside and showing me where he played ball.) I set him down on the floor after putting on his shoes and told him to go find Daddy. And here's the best part. I followed him down the hall, past his brother's room where my big five year old was simultaneously making his bed and doing some sort of hip hop dance while singing to himself, and into our bedroom. And my tiny toddler walked up to Daddy, touched his knee, and said, "missed you Daddy." oh. my. god. This is huge. Sometimes we feel as though this little guy is more of an occasionally angry room mate than a son. He often seems to exist with us- likes to spend time with us, depends on us to meet his needs, but truly emotionally invested in us? Maybe not so much. But yesterday morning he told his daddy that he had missed him.

I am planning to work tomorrow evening, so before then we will make a plan to keep the boys busy. Maybe I will make a list of activities for them to keep busy. Maybe those activities will take place away from me  outside in the fresh air. Maybe the floor will be sticky and all the kitchen cupboards will be open when I come back downstairs tomorrow. Maybe it will continue to sound as though a herd of elephants are chasing each other around the living room. Who knows. We'll figure out this work any hours I want from home thing. But more importantly, the tiny toddler had two BIG successes this weekend - and that is what I should be thinking about in the middle of the night.

no one ever talks about the guilt...

No one ever talks about the guilt. Adoptive parents hear "you are so lucky" so often that maybe we feel we can't occasionally complain about the trials and tribulations of raising children. We all know that sometimes just getting through the day with our little ones is quite a chore, no matter how they joined the family. But if they just happened to have joined through adoption then those trials sometimes get a little harder. Toss in the guilt of being frustrated at this beautiful child that you wanted so badly that you couldn't sleep at night and a little worry that whatever behavior is causing you your current stress might be adoption related and you've got the potential for a major mommy melt down.

My little guy is still so new to us. He is doing so well, especially considering all the changes he has lived through in the past two months alone. The bonding is going well. And I love every minute I spend with him. And when I go back to work I will look back on this time alone with him every day and miss it so much that I will find myself tearing up while on the company's clock. I went through this with my oldest son, the not being able to put him down or walk away without setting off a screaming fit in the baby. I would imagine nearly every adoptive parent goes through this. And, of course, in case you are thinking of sending me a fan letter, I know that biological parents go through the same thing. Of course I know.

But the months of trying to get pregnant. The testing and planning and oh my god, all that money spent on pregnancy tests. The pregnancies that ended much too soon. The invitro fertilizations. The drugs, the shots, the painful egg harvests. The daily blood tests. The waiting. Oh my god, the waiting. The years of wanting to be mommy. And now I am, only to want to hand over this baby to my husband the minute he walks in the door at night. Only I can't, because to do so I would have to also hand over my arm. Or my leg. Or whatever body part he had attached himself to.

And then there is the older son guilt. Am I doing right by my oldest child? Am I spending enough time alone with him? Is he adjusting well to his new brother? Did I do any long term damage by leaving him for a month to finalize his brother's adoption? Why is he so sensitive? Is he worried about something adoption related, like being "given back" or is he just being a typical over dramatic 4 year old?

So we feel we can't mention how hard it sometimes is. My new little guy really learned to survive. This means he will fight for what he wants. And if that means smacking or biting Mommy then so be it. He is getting better with this every day and I know that shortly it will only be a distant memory. The typical response to a 24 month old who hits when upset doesn't really work for my son, not yet. I can't really walk away. He needs to feel safe and to understand that his needs will be met. Eventually we can parent by "typical" means. But not now. And, to be honest, we may never be totally "typical" parents. Because some of that guilt will always be there, lurking behind every decision we make regarding our boys. Welcome to adoptive parenthood, again! Oh guilt, how I have missed you...

always something to feel guilty about...

This morning was a good morning. Matthew slept until we were ready to get him up, which is unusual. Funny though. He cries in the middle of the night, like he often does, just a quiet cry, loud enough to wake us up but then he goes right back to sleep. He does this frequently throughout the night, although not as often as he did when he first came home. When he first came home he would scream these blood curdling screams, wailing, and we would rush to his crib, where he was sound asleep. We are not sure if it is an orphanage thing, or an ear thing... But he cries less now, and not so strongly. Which still wakes us up, or me, at least. I lay in bed and think "Oh, Matthew, honey, it's ok. Go back to sleep." But this morning, he was sleeping so soundly that I hated to wake him up.

When he doesn't cry, I should be happy. I can get ready for work in peace, not rushing around trying to brush my teeth while standing in my closet trying to pull together something to wear. But that is not what happens. Instead, I panic a little. Why is he so quiet? Why can't I hear him breathing? Should I check on him? There is always something to feel guilty about, I think. Always something to panic about...

But I held it together, and finished my morning, and then went to wake up my little angel. And he was so well behaved while getting dressed, also unusual. By the time we made it downstairs we were actually ahead of schedule. We all made it out the door on time this morning, on a Monday!

So panic over, for now. Until lunch time, when I will sit at my desk and think about my son eating his lunch, sitting at the little table, in his little chair. Not in a high chair, all strapped in and safe, like he would be at home. Eating his lunch in a room full of toddlers, not with the one on one attention he gets from Mommy at home. So the panic and the guilt will begin again. Did I cut up his food small enough? Should I have taken the fruit out of the cup, because some of the pieces are kind of big... Will his teachers make sure he doesn't choke?

Then lunch passes, and the panic subsides. Until the next thought crosses my mind.... Will something happen because I am not with him? Then I will arrive at the door to his classroom, peeking in through the little window, and watch as he plays with a truck on the colorful carpet. And the door will open and he will run to me, tossing the truck away, yelling "mama" and jumping into my arms. And we will all have survived another day.