Yesterday was a bad working mommy day.
I have a great family friendly career. Like most of you know I work with college students. It is fun, rewarding, and it allows me great flexibility with my schedule. I work a lot of nights and I work long days Monday - Wednesday so I can have off Thursday afternoons and Fridays. Which is great because I get to be home with the girls and also save on daycare expenses.
Some weeks I can handle those long days and nights. But this week it has been very hard for me. Hubby picks the girls up from daycare at like 3:30pm and then he is home alone with them the whole night. He is great but I know it is a lot and I cannot help but feel guilty....and helpless because I cannot be there. I try really hard to have everything prepared in advance to make it easier for them. For example, I cooked a week's worth of meals, have all of their Pj's organized and laid out, and I really try to have some activities like play-doh, coloring, ready for them to play when they get home.
But I still miss them. And yesterday my heart hurt because I wanted to be home so bad. And it was hard because I had to get up in front of like 100 college students and talk about "why friends with benefits is a bad idea". But what is hard to and really conflcts me at times it that the students I work with almost see me as their mom away from home. Now I am in no way old enough to be their mothers but they really look to me for guidance, education, and support. So I want to be there for them because I do feel like I make a difference in their lives.
But yesterday I just wanted to go home. And the more I thought about going home the longer it seemed to take me to get there.
On my long nights hubby will try to keep the girls up for me so I can at least see them for a little bit. Last night I got home at 9:30pm. Their faces lit up. It just made my day...or night. I brought the little one upstairs and rocked her to sleep. I said don't worry mommy will be home all day Thursday through Sunday. Hopefully she will understand. Then I put her to bed.
For the next hour I played with Diva2. Then up to bed she went.
By that time it was 10:00pm. I have not even kissed my hubby in two days. How sad. So I said let's watch a movie. He put in The Hangover.
I snuggled up to him and fell asleep.
So that was my life as working mom yesterday. I guess I wasn't really working it as much as I would of liked. But some days are just going to be hard days. I wish I had some tips for you on how to handle days like that. But honestly I don't. Not right now anyway.
Hopefully today will be better.
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“I brought the little one upstairs and rocked her to sleep. I said don’t worry mommy will be home all day Thursday through Sunday. Hopefully she will understand. Then I put her to bed” This, made me cry.
I understand completely. I like my job, I really do. But those long days just kill me. There was a movie or something somewhere that someone (yeah, I’m not good with specifics) said “I missed a whole day of her life” and I hate the days that I feel like that. Today when my husband & I left for work he said to our daughter “you see Grandma more than you see us.” True fact.
You’re not alone, but that probably doesn’t make you feel any better.
Oh how your post made my heart ache. I am not even a mom yet, and I already have pangs of the same feeling. Yesterday I arrived home really late due to a conference we are staging at work this week, rushed to put dinner together for us (something that is usually one of my favorite “destressing” activities) and get it on the table, cleaned up the kitchen and checked email while my husband walked the dog, and then collapsed on the sofa and looked across the room and realized – I had barely even hugged them hello, hadn’t really found out how the day was for him or anything, and it was after 9:00 at night. I can only imagine how that feeling is compounded when you have little ones you are missing as well.
Sometimes I stop and realize suddenly that I just miss my family so much – I look down at my sweet dog looking hopefully up at me as I run out the door and I just want to stop and have the time to take him for a giant walk and watch him bounding happily through the neighborhood. I don’t want to look back when he is gone and be sorry that I didn’t have that time. (And he is “just ” a dog! Though I don’t really think about it that way, obviously.)
Well written and honest post. Thank you for sharing.
Sounds like you were Working It, to me! We do the best we can… even when it seems like not enough. Having two full-time jobs is tough!!! Especially when being someone’s mom is one of them.
Oh girl…we should form a club. It KILLS me! There are so many reasons why I want to be a working mom and so many reasons that I hate being away from my son (especially with my son’s daycare issues right now, in case you haven’t read). When I’m at work, I want to be home. When I’m at home, I am thinking about work. It’s a daily battle, a constant juggle. Hang in there. I’m with you…
Hang in there girl…you are doing what is best for your family. Enjoy that time with the kiddos. It is precious! They will always remember the nights you got home and played with them.
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