A day off

I have today off. Well, mostly off. I have set a regular work schedule for myself in an attempt to accomplish all that I want to while maintaining the much needed balance in my life to feel at ease. I have a nanny who comes on Mondays and Wednesdays and I've been trying to schedule most of my meetings and work during the times that she is there. I have some afternoons as well, when most of the kids are at school and the ones who aren't are sleeping, that I'm happy to take calls and roll up my sleeves. The problem for me with all this work that I've been doing (which I must add that I do love) is that I'm a stay at home mom. I already had a full time job when I slowly acquired a second one. I found myself working around the clock, quite literally, answering emails and taking calls, and my kids noticed. Patience was low, stress levels were high, and time-outs were reaching epic levels. That's when I realized that too many time-outs were the result of not enough time in. All these kids want is my time and attention, and if I didn't figure out a way to balance all of my new work with all of my current work, we weren't going to be a happy bunch.

The kids were off school on Friday, so we packed up the car around 9am and headed to the Children's Museum, followed by lunch and an afternoon trip to the Nature Center. The weather was beautiful and we just wanted to be outside, with no agenda. That night, there was a fall carnival at their school. We had dinner there, and then  played enough games to fill us up with carload of junk for the ride home. We had friends over to play on Saturday, and a birthday party with more friends on Sunday. We all spent 3 days together. I'm not going to lie and say that it was all fun and smiles, but I noticed an improvement in attitudes and a drop in our time-out rate. If I could put this into a pretty little chart, the Quality Improvement folks that I work with would be proud.

I hadn't opened my computer once since Thursday afternoon until last night, and even then, it was only briefly. So when this morning rolled around and our nanny knocked on the door at 9am, I had plans to find a quite place to sit and get back to business. But my calendar was free! I had nothing scheduled today, and it has turned out to be just what I needed. I ran a few errands, I did some things just for me, I spent the last hour sitting in Starbucks plugging away at the blog, and it feels so good. I am refreshed. I am not short on time today. I'm not rushing anywhere, and I think the kids will notice. When I pick them up from school in 30 minutes, I won't be fresh off a conference call or trying to tie up loose ends while they vie for my attention to tell me about the picture they drew or the game they played or the homework they have. We have a birthday party for a stuffed animal taking place today at 4pm, and I want to be there, in body and mind.

I feel guilty about working, about being away from them, even though I absolutely love what I do. They aren't going to be little forever, and they need my time and attention and I want to give it to them. In talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, she used the term "mission path" to describe the way that she remains focused on the work that she wants to do. I've thought a lot about that, and have tried to focus in on what it is that I want to do. In work and in life, if I'm asked to participate in something that is outside of my mission path, I think seriously about the implications of choosing whether or not to participate. I don't think my mission path is well defined just yet, but I think I'm getting there. I actually said no to a couple of really great opportunities in November because my family is my priority, and I think that's a step in the right direction.

I am going to schedule a day off from time to time, and I'm going to appreciate how it refreshes me.