Slammed if you do, Slammed if you don't

Four months ago I quit my full-time job. (Good timing, right? But remember, this was before the whole-worst-financial-crisis-in-U.S.-history-since-the-Great-Depression-thing.)

Right. So I left full-time employment for lots of reasons, chief among them being that my other jobs were getting neglected. Jobs like CEO and Comptroller of the Entire Household, and my other position, Secretary of Family Affairs. There was also that other role: Mom. Things just seemed to be out of control at home, and since I had freelanced before for many years, my husband and I figured this could be a better choice for us as a family.

So here I am four months later and, um... things still seem out of control.

I should be really relaxed, because for the most part, I DID take the summer off with my daughter and we got to do a lot of great things. And I really got to be there -- to just soak in the last little moments of her being my baby.

Then September rolled around and I made myself this really great schedule where all the most pressing domestic duties would be spread across the week like margarine on toast. Things would be so smooth! It was going to be awesome! I would finally have a clean, organized home, more time with my family, and a thriving career from my newly organized home office.

My schedule looked something like this: Clean kitchen on Monday. Grocery shop Tuesday morning. Wednesday, laundry. You get the idea. I stuck to that schedule for exactly one week. Maybe a week and a half, if I'm being generous.

What I didn't expect is that the domestic concerns would just blossom and threaten to take over every single moment of my time. (OK, well, I also didn't count on out of town guests, a spider infestation, my husband needing outpatient surgery, and a major plumbing disaster. There's also the backup of family-related paper work that hasn't been dealt with for months that I am still digging my way out of and hope to finish before it's time to file our taxes.)

When I worked at my old job, all this stuff just had to fit around my work. Either it got done, or it got farmed out (online grocery shopping, anyone?), or it just had to wait. Plus there were sick days and personal time. Not to mention paid vacation. There was a gym near my office, and sometimes I made it there. I didn't step foot in the gym this entire week, and you can tell by my lousy attitude. Also, most days when I left work, I left it there. But now that my office is in the house, well, it is always calling me like a demanding mistress.

Of course, my totally wonderful husband is reminding me that this is a transition phase, and I have only really been working as a freelancing mommy for two months, so I should give myself a break. I've brought in some work, and recently formed a writing group for other freelancing moms in my area. I feel good about these things.

But what I am realizing more and more is that, if you are a mommy and you have to work (I mean you really, really, have to work and your family is counting on the income you can bring in) things are just going to be hard to balance sometimes. Things aren't ever going to be perfect. You are slammed whether you work at a desk all day in an office, or at one in your home. There's just not enough time in the day.

But before I get too worked up, there is one critical thing that is much better since I left my job. And I don't want to forget that, because she is the main reason I decided to go for the flexibility of freelancing. And she is my daughter, not quite four and totally amazing. And her quality of life has improved dramatically since I left, I think.

She has a shorter day at pre-school, and she is now in a cooperative, progressive school where all the parents are involved. We have more time together, plain and simple. Time for me to walk with her and her classmates to the park in the morning. Time for a special gellato after school, or a quick trip to the mall together to pick out a new hat and mittens. There's time for after school classes, like swimming, which all used to be squeezed into the weekends. There's the amazing gift of not having to worry about what I am going to do when she is sick or has the day (or week) off school. And I finally gave myself permission to take off and go on the school field trip (we went to a farm, where we drank cider, went on a hayride, saw a mother pig and baby piglets and fed the goats, one of whom bit me on the arm. But that is another story.)

So, these past few weeks, I have to say that while I feel sometimes I am just as stressed and sleep deprived as always, I have enjoyed walking through the autumn leaves with my girl and holding her hand every day. And that is a very good thing.