Those of you who know me in real life may know that I recently got a job. Those of you who only know me on here, well... now you know I got a job! A job outside of the house.
I've worked almost the whole time I've been a mom. But I haven't worked outside the house since the fall 2010. And with this job, I worked in the mornings--usually while they were in preschool. So I didn't feel like I was missing out on too much. But now that I'm keeping a different schedule, the story has changed a bit.
Since I had Peach in early Sept of 2005, I have almost always worked outside the home. When she was merely three months old, I worked at Victoria's Secret just to get out of the house. When she was six months old I started teaching as an adjunct at a nearby university. At the same time I was also writing the Historic Photos book. I taught a couple classes and wrote the book while pregnant with our second child, and my second set of classes ended about 6 weeks before she was due. And shortly after Brownie was born, the book was released. I did some (very minimal) promo stuff for the book when Brownie was just months old, and then I just enjoyed staying home. At the end of May 2007, I got a job at the history museum writing standards-based tours. I was also pregnant with Bug during that summer. And again, the job was done (in other words, grant money ran out) about 2 months before Bug was due in mid fall 2007. About 2.5 months after her birth, in January of 2008, the museum staff offered me another job actually giving these standards-based tours. And that was a great job. I loved teaching students without having to actually be a classroom teacher. Two years later, in Janurary 2010, I also started working for a for-profit, online university. I continued giving tours for nearly 3 years, and by the fall of 2010 my brood had grown too big. I was shuffling too many kids to too many places, and I was just too busy to fill the hours they needed. But I was still left with my "at-home" job--teaching online.
This past December my husband and I decided I should get a part-time job. By the way, my husband already has a part-time job teaching for a different for-profit, online university. Anyway, we knew that I was only going to work when he was home so that we didn't have to pay for babysitting. I shopped around for places where I thought I could stand to work (I was really praying Starbucks needed me, or obvious reasons), and I lucked out after finding an ad on craigslist (though it's not at Starbucks). So, now I have a part-time job that keeps me away from the house a few nights during the week and the better chunk of the weekend days.
I feel completely blessed to be able to bring in some income. I love contributing. I love being able to provide (if only a little) for our family. And I know the struggles that come with having a job tat requires you to work at home (while you're a SAHM), so I'm actually really happy to not have to deal with those. In that sense, it's nice to be able to leave the house and devote my full attention to my job and not try to divide it between my many kids and my job.
All that said, I really dislike the part about being away from my babies. I hate missing their tuck-ins on the weeknights. I hate not having some family down time on the weekends. The time I do have at home on the weekends is either rushed trying to get chores done, or eating dinner and getting them to bed. I'm usually gone the better part of their day--and that makes me a little sad. I hate thinking about missing out on what used to be special time for our family. I know they still carry on playing dolls and house without me while enjoying time with daddy. So selfishly, in that respect, I guess I'm just sad for me. In all honesty though, I know they miss me too--especially during the week. They are used to me being there at tuck-in time, so it's certainly been an adjustment. They've been a little more clingy. Maybe I've been a little more clingy... but it's an adjustment period. What else can we expect?
Additionally, I feel bad, yet thankful, for my husband. He works a full-time job, a part-time job teaching online (which keeps him busy every night anywhere from 30 mins to three hours), and now he's doing a lot more chores (that are typically my chores) around the house and taking care of our children while I'm at work. He has done such an awesome job at keeping up with the house work and taking care of our babies.
I'll admit that I was scared to turn over some of these duties. I was worried I'm come home to a huge mess in the kitchen, or clothes that were never moved from the washer to the dryer, or what have you. And this is not because I think he's lazy, it's simply because I know what it's like to be at home with 5 kids all 6 and under--it's super busy. I simply thought he couldn't do it all! But guess what---he's superman. No really, he is! He can do it all. When I started this job, I just asked that he stay on top of the kitchen and laundry. If he saw clothes that needed washed, dried, folded or put away, then it needed to be done. And in the kitchen, I said relatively the same thing. The message being, just do what needs to be done in these two areas. And he took it to heart. He does an excellent job staying on top of it all--he builds the kids forts, builds a syllabus for his class, unloads and loads the dishes, switches out the laundry, feeds the baby a bottle, cooks a meal, cleans up after that meal and bathes the kids. He literally does it all. And I come home to a clean house, and if it's dinner-time, I even come home to good meal.
And that's one of the things I love most about this job--it highlights our strengths as a couple. We make a great team. We communicate (though we wished we had time to communicate more often), we set goals, we get S*%T done! I feel so completely blessed and happy to have a husband who cares about making it all work. I'm proud to stand by his side and be his partner through this life. And I know he feels the same way!
So to sum it up--
---I got YET another job.
---My kids miss me and I miss them.
---My husband is totally awesome and SUPERMAN!
---I like to look at the silver-lining when life gets "cloudy," though I'm still seeing the cloud too! HA!
No comments:
Post a Comment