Being a work at home mom.

I often hear the comment:  "I don't know how you do everything you do!"  My reply is usually:  "Ha!  You should see my house," or "Well, some days are better than others," or "I don't know either."  But today I'd like to share a little of how I do what I do, and perhaps a little bit of why as well.

If you are considering a stay at home business, but haven't taken the dive yet, I would encourage you to very carefully consider all sides of this issue, because it isn't easy.  It can be done, and in many cases I think it is well worth the effort, but I don't want you to expect that it will be easy, because it won't be.

For me, "everything I do," includes several things.  I care for my three children at home.  My oldest is 8 and is in 2nd grade, which she does at home under my tutoring and guidance.  The youngest two are boys, 3 years and 2 years old.  (If you are wondering why there are 4 children in this picture my daughter drew of our family, the 2nd child is our daughter Emma, who already awaits us in heaven.)  I do the majority of housework (though how frequently and how well it gets done, I will not pretend is ideal).  I cook the meals, do the laundry, and the miscellaneous other details that go along with caring for a home and children.  On top of that full-time job, I try to run our family business:  Baby Vardo.  Thankfully my husband is in charge of all the technical and design details for the website, which he does in his free time since he has a full-time job outside the home.  I am in charge of designing products, making sure they get made, filling orders, and keeping up with accounting, supply ordering, and customer support.  And of course if I have time, I am supposed to do some promotional work like blogs and emails.

So, of course, the first question that comes to mind when reading that is "Why?"  Why do I choose to do all of that?  I guess the most honest answer would be that I didn't think through it all beforehand.  :)  But I continue to do it because I love it.  I wake up in the morning hoping I will have the time and energy to create something new today.  I have a long mental list of potential projects at all times.  The hardest part is just being patient, because being a mom means creating often gets pushed to the side.

And that's where I struggle the most.  It's hard to stop working on a project and start being mom again because the kids woke up from naptime.  It's even harder to enjoy working when you are trying to answer an email while someone is frantically calling you from the other room (especially when you know that they really don't need you).  But first and foremost I am a mom, and that comes first.  At least I want it to come first.  I don't count it a failure when I don't finish a project on schedule because I had too many interruptions and too little time to spend on it.  But, if I've rushed through school, not sat down to read a book to my toddler, yelled and bullied my kids so that I have time to sew, then I have failed miserably and it isn't worth it.  And so, even though I won't give up my creative endeavors because I think they help me to be a whole person, I will also be content with very slow progress towards my goals.

In day to day life, this means balance.  Which in my case, usually means schedule.  I don't stick 100% to a schedule, but I do have one, because when things start spinning wildly out of control, I know that tomorrow I can slow down, walk through my schedule one step at a time and accomplish what truly needs to be done.  My schedule includes things like laundry and dishes and meal prep.  It has school times (which is probably the thing we stick to the most on there) and work times.  My work times are important, because I am currently trying to learn to stop work at the end of my allotted time and save it till the next free time I have.  This is easier said then done.  My schedule also has plenty of "free time."  My free time often turns into work time, but that's OK as long as I am wanting to use it that way.  Each day has its own scheduled chores and its own work responsibilities.  I get overwhelmed when I see the big picture, both in my house and my work.  When I see that the whole house needs to be cleaned, I just want to climb into bed and hide.  But if I know that today I only have to clean the bathroom, and the rest can wait until another day, I am more motivated to keep up with it all.  For my work schedule this has had a similar effect.  I got tired of sitting down with an hour of work time blocked out for me, only to waste half of it because I didn't know which project to work on.  So now each day has it's own responsibilities and to do lists, and I know where to start and what to do.

The other important thing in juggling multiple responsibilities is flexibility.  The best schedule in the world will just stress you out if you can't throw it out of the window when a kid gets sick, unexpected company stops by, or you have a chance to go on a great family outing.  Sometimes we do a no schedule day, just because we can.  This helps to refresh tired minds and bodies and the next day can usually be started with more vigor than before.  I also practice flexibility in how I view my house.  Being a laid back person naturally helps.  I find that my day goes a bit better if I don't stress too much about the toys strewn about the living room or the dishes piled on the counter.  As long as I have a time during the day that I know I will get to them, I can ignore them until that time.  We do a clean up time before supper, right before Daddy comes home.  Some days we are more successfull than others, but when it does happen, Dad comes in to a clean living room and kitchen and I feel good ending my day with clean counters and a fresh floor to start our playtime on tomorrow.

One thing stay-at-home moms don't get is a lunch break, because feeding lunch to little kids is anything but relaxing.  So in order to keep my sanity I take a time-out during the kids naptime (and yes, all three kids have a naptime, even if they don't sleep).  I don't take very long, especially if I have work to do, but I try to sit down, do something relaxing that isn't connected to work, and just basically take a breath before I jump back into momhood or work.  It also helps when I am reading the Bible and praying at some point in my day.  I am not extremely successful at that, but I keep working on it. 

On a business note, I, with my husband's encouragement, hand off responsibilities whenever possible.  For instance, not too far into our business, I found that it was exremely hard to keep up with production of our burp cloths because we were selling them so well.  We found some other stay at home moms that wanted to earn a little extra cash, and they started sewing my best sellers for me.  I now have 4 moms that sew almost all of my bibs and burp cloths for me.  I really don't know how I'd do it without them.  When we were doing a lot of embroidery, we also had employees that came in to do that for me as well.

We also try to re-evaluate regularly, and change things as needed to make it work better.  This is actually harder than it sounds, as I don't like changing things midstream.  But it often has to be done, and it has always worked out to be better in the long run.  For instance, many of you know that we used to have a retail store in which we sold retail products as well as our own handmade items.  We loved our store and our customers, but it was just a huge stress on our family time and finances.  I originally planned on working many of the hours myself with my kids playing in the back of the store.  Now I laugh that I ever thought that was possible.  Closing the store was one of the hardest decisions we've made, but also one of the best.

I'm sure there are other things I could share, but this has ended up being pretty long, so I'll have to pick up this topic again in another blog.  Feel free to share some of your tips of how you get through a day balancing work, family, and creativity.