As I’m typing this while corresponding with a colleague via email at the same time, my toddler is creating a make-shift table out of an old diaper box, and my youngest is trying to devour an extra-large block. You may think, “Ah, that’s the life. She gets to be home with her kids and work at the same time.” It sounds fantastic on paper, and when you say it out loud, but in reality it’s sometimes stressful and leaves you feeling guilty. Here’s what I mean…

I started out my motherhood journey as a stay-at-home mom. I freelanced a little on the side during my daughter’s first year of life, but it was mostly just fun, small writing gigs here and there. When I was pregnant with BunBun, though, I actually started making enough money to regularly help pay a couple bills every month. I still wasn’t rolling in the dough, by any means, but I was working.

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Just after BunBun was born, I hired a part-time babysitter to come over a few mornings a week to watch my toddler. They would play for several hours, giving me time to make my deadlines and work uninterrupted. This routine was fantastic, especially since BunBun was still in that immobile, sleep-all-the-time phase.

But then two things happened that rocked my WAHM mojo: my babysitter moved out of state, and BunBun transitioned from the newborn phase into the rolling-and-crawling-and-moving-everywhere-lightning-fast phase.

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Luckily, Bunny now goes to “school” twice a week for a few hours, so I can get some work in then, but I’m only really productive if BunBun is napping. We have this play pen set up for her in my office with her favorite toys, but she gets extremely frustrated (i.e. cries…loudly) after a few minutes of being in there, because she wants more freedom. We nicknamed it “Baby Jail,” and I’m pretty sure she takes that phrase literally. So, I’m left to work through her loud cries (almost impossible to focus), or hold her and type with one hand (takes a ridiculously long time to finish anything).

When I mention my conundrum, people usually suggest one of two things:

1. Work during their nap time. (This only works if they both nap at the same time. Some days they do, and it’s wonderful and I try to knock out as much as I can during that short time, but some days they don’t.)

2. Work at night after they go to sleep. (Luckily they do go to sleep around the same time every night, and I do try to get some work in then, but I’m very much a morning person and my creativity is pretty much dead once the sun goes down. Not to mention, BunBun still wakes up 2-3 times in the middle of the night, which means I’m up several times for a decent period of time every night. I value my sleep, and if I worked at night then there would be no time for sleep. I’m yawning just thinking about sleep tonight.)

This leaves a few options left:

Hire another babysitter (I’m actively looking, I promise), or work while they’re both awake. This option is the one where I’m left feeling judged by other parents and, unfortunately, by my toddler. It means turning on the TV for a couple hours a day and letting Daniel Tiger babysit my daughter (works especially well if I time this while the baby is napping).

The problem is that she knows I’m on the computer, but she doesn’t understand that I’m working—even if I tell her and try to explain it to her. She gets that her dad works, that other moms work, that her grandma works, etc., but all she knows and sees is that I’m not paying attention to her. It breaks my heart when she says, “Close your computer, Mama,” because she doesn’t understand that even though I’m home with her, I’m still working.

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I’ll sometimes work at a cafe while the toddler is at school, just to get out of the house, but lately the only “work” I do there is a workout from picking up my baby’s toys. She recently discovered how fun gravity is, so not a whole lot of work is actually accomplished.

I realize how incredibly lucky I am that we can afford for me to stay at home, but I want to work. It’s been several years since I worked, and I’ve missed it. A lot. I definitely don’t make enough to justify sending them to daycare, and I don’t make enough to justify hiring an actual nanny to come over everyday, but I love what I do; it fills my cup and rejuvenates me, if you will. I love staying home with my kids and working. They both fulfill me in a way that’s hard to describe; I’m just in a season of my life where I’m having a hard time balancing everything.

So pretty please tell me your ways.
Tell me how you balance working from home with little ones literally running around under you.