Describe a typical day in your life.

6:00 am – wake up, shower, get ready for work.  I let myself sleep in an extra 30-minutes on days that I work from home!  On those days, I look like the frumpy housewife I told myself I’d never become.

6:30 am – make breakfast for Noelle before she gets up.  She is currently obsessed with oatmeal, so her breakfast is oatmeal topped with a fried egg and a bit of soy sauce.  It provides her with whole grains, protein, and healthy fats to start her day off right!

6:50 am – wake up Noelle, wash her face, brush her teeth, and change her out of her jammies.

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7:00 am – make sure she’s in her high chair (it usually takes her about 20-30 minutes to eat).  I quickly eat and pack my own lunch as she eats.

7:20 am – Noelle is out the door with Mr. Heels and he drops her off at preschool since it’s along the same route as his commute.

8-9 am – I have pretty flexible hours, but I’m usually in the office between 8-8:30 am.  My day is filled with meetings, but they are mostly via teleconferencing and webex so I rarely have to meet with anyone face-to-face.  This is the reason why I’m able to work from home so much.

Lunch – No specific or set time – it really varies day-by-day depending on how busy I am.  I just try to find a large chunk of time in between meetings to eat.  I always bring my kindle to work so I will either eat and read in my car, then take a quick nap… or run a few errands.  If I’m at home, I’ll usually rummage through the fridge and find something quick and easy to eat.

 4:30-5 pm – I leave work around this time, and usually make it home by 5 pm.  When I’m working from home, I keep myself in my “home office” (aka, a small desk in our master bedroom) until 5pm.  Mr. Heels gets off work at 4:30 pm and swings by the preschool to pick Noelle up before making it home.

5:30 pm – Dinnertime!  We eat early dinners so we can eat with Noelle, especially since she has a really early bedtime.  It’s even earlier now ever since she started school (their naptimes are shorter than she’s used to, and she doesn’t always nap as well at school as she does when she’s in the quiet comfort of her crib).

6:00 pm – Bathtime!  Mr. Heels gives her all her baths ever since I got pregnant with Baby #2.

6:30 pm – Start her bedtime routine and put her down.  We take turns doing it, and we often put her down together if we’re both home.  We brush her teeth, put her in her sleep sack, sing a couple rounds of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “Rockabye Baby,” say a little prayer, give her a kiss and hug, and down she goes.

After she goes to bed – I will prepare for the next day by packing her lunch and tidying up the house, then proceed to veg out.

*A note about pumping at work* – I work for a large corporation, and in CA if a company has over a certain number of employees, the business is required to provide some sort of mother’s room.  Our mother’s room includes outlets, couches, curtains, lockers, and a sink so I felt pretty fortunate to have those amenities available to me.  When I first went back to work, I was hugely protective of my pumping breaks and I talked to my employer about it.  Luckily, they were very understanding.  I usually spent about 20-30 min in the mother’s room to pump and clean my supplies.  Since there were lockers available, I would store my pumping supplies there when I got into work first thing in the morning.  My work also has a downstairs cafe with a huge fridge for us to store our lunches, so that’s where I would keep my bags of pumped breast milk until it was time to go home for the day.  When I saw my supply decrease, I started to heavily supplement with Fenugreek and Milk Thistle capsules, and Mother’s Milk Tea.  I kept these in my cubicle and another supply at home.  On average, I pumped 5-6 ounces per session until we weaned at around 11-months.

Has your work schedule changed since you had a baby? 
Yes!  Prior to having Toddler Heels, I was unemployed for about a year and a half, but enrolled in a Fully Employed MBA program.  So I studied during the day and went to school at night.  I was in this program because I was employed and had intended to work full-time while finishing up my Master’s, but unfortunately, I got laid off in the middle of it.

What type of childcare do you have?
When I went back to work, my MIL quit her part-time job to take care of Noelle full-time while Mr. Heels and I both worked.  It was really nice because she was very involved since her birth, so she understood all our routines and parenting preferences.  Noelle just recently started going to preschool this month and is there for most of our work day.

How do you juggle work/family/spouse/personal time balance?
It definitely helps that my in-laws are around.  When my in-laws aren’t available to help, we take turns caring for Noelle so we still have somewhat of a social life.  We are pretty good about giving each other space and we put a lot of value into maintaining friendships despite the fact that none of our closest friends are in the same life stage as us.  For example, if I wanted to have dinner with my girlfriends one night, Mr. Heels will do the entire bedtime routine on his own.  He is a very very involved and laid-back dad.  Mr. Heels is part of a softball league on Thursday nights, we have date nights on Fridays, and make an effort to eat out as a family at least once or twice a week.  Our weekends are also mostly dedicated to family time.  Noelle goes down really early (and it’s even earlier now that she’s in preschool and getting shorter naps – she went from sleeping at 7 pm to 6:30 pm), so after that we get a lot of personal time.  I like to spend it on Hellobee and the internet, reading, or watching TV.  Mr. Heels prefers to play video games or watch TV with me.

What advice would you give to other moms about work/life balance?
Do what works for you. There is no one-size-fits-all. Trust your instincts and try not to worry too much about what others think.  At the end of the day, only you know what’s best for you and your family.  The only way we can give our best to our children is if we take care of ourselves first, and that looks different for each one of us!

What’s a parenting rule you never break?
We never let Noelle walk on the street without one of us holding her hand. She must hold our hand at all times when we’re in a public, high traffic place.  I’ve also always been very committed to her schedule, especially when it comes to her sleep.  I am hugely protective of her sleep and it is really rare for me to make an exception for something at the expense of her sleep.

What’s a parenting rule you always break?
Ohhh, there are so many!  Where do I begin?  Noelle loves food, so one of the things I have a hard time doing is making her wait for food.  I’ll usually give her something to munch on like grapes or dried cranberries to hold her over even if it’s close to mealtime.  Seeing her happy makes me happy so I have to resist giving in to her a lot!  My husband is definitely the firmer one of the two of us; I grew up with very, very, very, easy-going, laid-back parents so this discipline thing isn’t something that comes as easily to me.

What’s the hardest part of being a mom?
People often say, “it will get easier/better,” but I’ve always been in the camp of, “it’ll get different” because I’ve come to learn that with every stage (at least in the first few years), there is always something challenging that replaces what was previously so difficult.  At first it’s the lack of sleep, then helping them through their stranger anxiety, then learning to keep them from harm as they become more mobile, then potty training, then the “terrible two’s and three’s.”  Then.. well, I’m not quite there yet, but when I get there I’ll let you know what else to watch out for!  ;)  Being a mom is the most fulfilling role in the world, but at the same time, it is also the most difficult.  I worry that any baggage I might have (whether I realize it or not), will trickle down to her.  I’m trying my best, but sometimes I wonder, what if my best isn’t good enough?

What’s the best part of being a mom?
Seeing my daughter’s face light up when she sees me.  The way she yells, “mama mama!”, then runs to me like I’m her life.  How she wraps her arms around me and hugs me tight, never wanting to let me go.

What are three words that describe you as a mom?
Overwhelmed by love.

What do you like to do in your personal time?
I like to hang out with my girlfriends over coffee or just sit at a coffeeshop by myself drinking a really good latte while reading my Kindle.  I’m a huge bookworm!  On a daily basis though, after the day is done and Noelle is down… I will plop down on our bed with my laptop – I always have three tabs open – Facebook, Hellobee, and Gmail… and before I know it, it’s bedtime and I’m ready to do this all over again!  Now that Fall is upon us, I’m sure the TV will be on a lot more often too!!  Can’t wait for the premieres of some of my favorite shows, like Revenge, Top Chef, Once Upon a Time, Modern Family, and Downton Abbey!

If you had an entire day off, how would you spend it?
I’d sleep in, then take a loooong hot shower, get some really good brunch with my husband overlooking the ocean, go on a beautiful and scenic hike, then get dressed up and go out to a fancy dinner somewhere just the two of us.  Essentially, I’d recreate our dating life.