Balance

I am really an all or nothing kind of person.
This is a challenge, when raising little people.
Balance is tough for me.

I work part-time at a job that pays me in dollars, not memories.
I work that job from my home office.
I am paid well for a job I truly enjoy AND I get to be home with my people.
Sounds great, no?

Reality.
I wake up.  I start coffee.  I check crack berry for emails and texts.
I get kids up, feed them, yell ask them to get dressed, brush teeth, get backpacks.
I drive them to school, while navigating a ridiculously inefficient car rider line.
For a few minutes I am just like every other mother in line, in her jammies with a coffee mug in her hand.  I am not a mother who is mentally running through the emails she forgot to send, phone calls to return and praying she has time to blow dry her hair before rushing downtown for a meeting.

I come home.  I feed my youngest.  I put Diego on for her and plant her in front of the tv.
I check emails again.  I send emails.  I maybe take a call.
I shower for the day, if I am lucky.  I make lunch, pack backpack and transport youngest to preschool.  We sing songs at the top of our lungs on the way there and for a moment I forget I have a meeting in 30 minutes with City officials.

I fly to the meeting like a banshee.  I usually am trying to find a pen to take notes with amidst the diapers, raisin boxes, markers and tampons in my purse.  I pray none of that falls out while running to the meeting from the parking lot, where my hastily completed parking job would not pass Drivers Ed inspection.

During the meeting I am mentally running through my afternoon-homework, stop at Teeter, piano/guitar, outside time with friends, dinner.  BLUE MOON.  Agh, the light at the end of the tunnel.  I am attempting to take notes with my jelly crusted pen and crayon filled notebook.

The afternoon flies by with kid pick-up, homework, activities and dinner.
In between, I check my crack berry 150 times, make a few calls where I frantically SHUSH my little people and wave my hand like a maniac, for them to stop making noise.  I go from spelling words and fraction problems to faxes and emails and then back again.

This week is Spring Break for my kids.  It also happens to be the week before my biggest work event all year.  Just the way the timing worked out this year.  Could be worse-used to be in the summer and that was hard with everyone home all the time.

I have lost my shit a few times this week, simply from stress.  My kids were in the car so long with me this morning, poor D got car sick and booted everywhere.  It's not fair to my kids but I can't seem to find that balance.  It eludes me all year, and it has for the past 7 1/2 years I have had this job.
I can't seem to find a way to only do one or the other during the day.  Either I'm building Legos and forts and dressing baby dolls, or I am emailing and calling and thinking about work.   At least that is how it should be.  But while I'm doing all of those things, I'm doing all of those things.  So in a nutshell, I am not doing either one particularly well, any day of the week.  Because I check my crack berry and take calls on the weekends as well.

Not every day is like this-there are many days through the year where I am getting my toes done and shopping at SouthPark.  But you better believe my crack berry is pinging and I am typing as I walk around the Gap.

I am thankful I have a job at all.  And one I genuinely love and that does some good for people.  I am especially thankful it allows me to be here with my little people, even if I am not always present.
Maybe turning 40 this year will help me find balance.  I could be halfway done...