Hello old friends! It’s been a while, but that’s because we have had some big changes around the Lion household. This week was my official first week as a full time working mom!

I have been wrestling with this decision for a long time, and in December the perfect job appeared and I decided to go for it! While it is only a part time position, it is a perfect mix of using my previous experience as an educator, and learning a new skill set managing grant programs in the non-profit world. It allows me time to do the things I love, but I also have the flexibility to work some from home, which is a huge benefit! Paired with the writing from home I was already doing, I am working full time hours now!

And while this seems like the perfect solution, it is not without its challenges. I thought I might share a few of the hurdles we have encountered, and how we are dealing with them as we transition to a totally different way of life!

1) Household Balance – Going from having one parent at home full time to two working parents means a big shift in the way we manage our household. Since I am working from home I still take on a little more of the home maintenance. It is much easier for me to manage the laundry and some of our other day to day chores. There has definitely been more shifted onto Mr. Lion’s plate, as I need a lot more help with cleaning and such, but overall we seem to be handling this pretty well. It helps that the kids aren’t here in the mornings tearing everything apart…the actual amount of cleaning has decreased quite a bit!

2) Managing Childcare – Fortunately, with my flexible schedule, we are able to only have the kids in part time daycare. They go from 7am until 12:30 pm each day, and then come home for their afternoon naps. We are splitting drop off and pick up, with Mr. Lion dropping the kids off in the morning and me picking them up. This has worked out really well so far! Since Mr. Lion takes them in the mornings, I get a pretty solid 7-8 hours to work during the day, and we pay a little less for childcare. So far so good on this plan, but there is definitely room for disaster. If we have a rough nap day, that means my workday gets cut short, which means I have to make up hours elsewhere. Fortunately my kiddos tend to be pretty consistent nappers, so hopefully this will work for the foreseeable future. A big change for Mr. Lion, however, will be that he will need to take over when the kids are sick. This is something I have always handled in the past, but because I am an independent contractor for most of my work, I don’t get paid time off. Mr. Lion, on the other hand, has plenty of PTO, so he will be the go-to sick baby caregiver.

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3) Setting Boundaries – This one is more related to the fact that I work from home, but it has been a little tough for me to turn off “work mode” and switch to “mom mode,” and vice versa. Since my hours aren’t really set in stone, it is easy for me to get caught up in a project and have a hard time turning my attention to my family. Likewise, it is sometimes hard to finish up my hours if I lose some time during our daytime transitions. This is a work in progress, but I have found that keeping a pretty close track of my hours and cutting myself off when I am done has been fairly helpful. Hopefully as I get used to this dynamic it will be easier!

4) Prioritizing Family Time – I always thought that having family time would be so much easier if I was staying at home. Unfortunately, me staying at home with the kids all day led to me wanting to get out and be alone once Mr. Lion came home! Now that I have “alone time” during the work week, I am finding I enjoy our time together as a family so much more! Not to mention the fact that with less time with each of the kids I am finding that the time I do have with them feels so much more special, and I am so much more engaged during that time than I was before. I am no longer constantly frazzled from the overwhelming amount of energy I was expending managing behavior and trying to keep my active 2 year old busy. The improvement in my mental health has been drastic, and I think my kids (especially Little Lion) can really tell. His behavior has really improved now that he has a more structured schedule, and we have so much more fun together!

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There are definitely still things we are figuring out! I am having trouble figuring out when to take time for myself (actual time, not work time!) now that I have so much less time with the kids. Finding time for friends is also a struggle. I would love to hear from you about how you make these, (or other things I haven’t thought of yet!) work as a working parent!