Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!
Last night I was reading this great post at Sparkplugging that really hit home for me. It’s about handling summer break when you’re a WAHM and the kids are home. I’m a WAHM and my kids are in daycare during the school year, but our sitter takes the summers off. That’s fine, since I used to be a teacher - I LOVED the idea of not having to pay to hold our spot during the summer when I wouldn’t be working. Now, I still don’t want to have my kids in daycare full-time in the summer, but not having ANY daycare is just about killing me!
I made it through June and the first part of July with NO daycare - I was only working before the kids got up in the morning, during nap, and after they went to bed. Well, as the post I mentioned says, summers for WAHM = NO SLEEP. That’s right - working is done when kids are sleeping. You know what? That doesn’t really cut it for me. No sleep means crabbiness and sloppy work. I’m not a good mom and I’m really not at the top of my game when I have to pack a full day’s work into those tiny nooks and crannies of time.
Enter my new best friend, T. T is actually a high school girl who for some reason, is willing to come to my house and watch my kids - and seems to enjoy it! I have given in and realized that it’s just not good for anyone for me to try to do it all for 3 months - I now have T. coming over for 4 - 8 hours each week to watch the kiddos while I work. The only catch? My children don’t seem to get that when T. is over, SHE’S in charge. That means they still want me for everything - no productivity earned in that! My home office doesn’t have a door (don’t ask, this house is over 120 years old) so there’s no way of hiding and working while I have the sitter here.
The solution? I drive 30 minutes each way to sit at Caribou and use their free wireless and furiously try to get a couple of hours of work in each time. Yup, that’s right. I waste up to 2 hours of paid babysitting time each week to drive to a coffee shop to work! Luckily this will all change in September when I have full-time daycare again (a woman who takes my kids into her home and treats them better than I do -I worship her).
Until then? I need a volunteer to come over and build me an office right next to my house. Any takers?
All seriousness … Are you paying “T.”?
If so this is an issue with her, I have been through this and you need to tell “T” that she is in charge. And you are to be bothered only for emergencies. I was a WAHD for a while and the in-house babysitter was completely responsible for keeping the kids out of my home office during work hours. May sound harsh but thats a neccessity.
Codytalkss last blog post..Wondering if people can "SELL" their candidate without even mentioning the other???
I have had the same issue when trying in new respite workers and I kind of let the person blend in and have kids used to her and she sees how it all flows.
Everytime I watch Super Nanny she has these charts up. Maybe when T is there you can adopt a chart and have it up for reminders on what to be doing during those times. Good luck
Bonnie Sayers (autismfamily)s last blog post..Announcing the Virtual Cat
I had that problem from the other end. When I was a teen, I was paid to watch a little boy (I think he was 2 or 3) while the mom worked at home. It lasted all of a couple hours. I couldn’t coax him away from hugging the office door and screaming. He wanted his mom and that was that.
Wonder if I’m closer than Caribou? It’s not exactly quiet around here since I’ve got two noisy kids, but they wouldn’t actually be after you, just generally loud.
Michelle
Michelle
I had the same issue with our sitter last summer and ultimately I had to go to the local library to get any work done. This summer I am doing it on my own and trying to work before the kids get up. So far, that’s not working out too well either.
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Cody - yup, I pay her. And I totally get what you mean, but she’s really my ONLY option. She’s great with the kids and I think she’s uncomfortable when I’m home too, which I can relate to from when I was a babysitter back in high school. For now, the benefits are outweighing the downsides. If she were an adult and a full-time caregiver, things would be different………and I’d DEFINITELY have a door on my office if the kids were always home while I was working
Bonnie - I’ll take a look at the chart idea, thanks!
Michelle - Sadly, I think your house is the same distance away as Caribou……bummer!
Lawschoolmum - Ouch, sounds like you have it worse than I do right now! Somehow we’ll make it through, right?
Ah, too bad. I can sympathise with trying to find time to work. I’ve been tempted to hire a babysitter sometimes. I was thinking of trying to hire someone to come play with the kids while I worked but I wonder how well that would work. Jamie would probably be fine playing with someone else and forgetting I exist but I think Josh would have a harder time of it (he’s 1).
I tried once with a few other moms to have a “working playgroup” and that was a disaster.
I think part time day care may be in my future if I want to get any work done. I just can’t program when I’m half asleep at midnight.
Michelle