a working mom's daily routine

By Geeky Mummy, The Hairdog Chronicles

The neighborhood I live in has a lovely online parent group. Every day someone will post a link to an interesting article, a request to borrow a pack n play for out of town guests, a testimonial for their nanny, a "lost and found" item, or a general parenting question. People always respond. I've been given a jog stroller, I've loaned out most of my parenting library, and being the loquacious type I have put my two penneth into most of the discussions.  A year or so ago a fellow mum posted to ask how to handle going back to work. In responding to her I ended up summarizing our daily life. I hope I helped, though I felt exhausted just writing it.

Dear E.

My husband and I both work full time (and we have 2 little kids, 1 and 3). It isn't easy. But it has always been our plan not to fall into the trap where both parents work, and yet one parent (usually mum) also picks up most of the household/child care responsibilities too. We do both work fairly regular hours, though we have quite long commutes. This is how we manage our week:

Breakfast all together. Dad packs the kids lunches. Mum gets kids dressed. Dad drops of kids at daycare, while mum goes straight into work.

Mum picks the kids up and prepares dinner for them while the cats conspire to trip her up if she doesn't feed them first. Dad leaves work later, since he got into his office later, so comes home around bathtime or bedtime. The kids get a bath most nights, but hair washing is only once a week, we can't stand the screaming more often than that.

We tag team making our own dinner, I usually decide what we are having and get it started, then my husband will finish preparing the food while I read bedtime stories, or vice versa. One of us feeds the dog. (To the dog's great delight, sometimes lines of communication cross, and both of us feed the dog)

As for chores, we have some help:
We have a housekeeper service once every 2 weeks. This means that on the morning they are due we spend and extra thirty minutes in the morning picking up the house so its surfaces are accessible for cleaning. If we have people over to visit in between cleaner visits, I give the house a quick once over using convenient but unenvironmental products like the Swiffer and Clorox wipes. I try to schedule dinner parties and playdates around the housekeeping schedule as much as possible to avoid cleaning! We have a dog walker and help in the garden too, and once a week or so I order ready-made yummy healthy dinners from a local caterer.

We divide up the other chores:
My husband stacks/empties the dishwasher and does dishes, and he also pays all the bills. I do all the laundry (5 loads a week, on the weekend). We do not iron anything. I only buy easy wash and wear cotton jersey type clothes, and just accept that we look a bit crumpled. It is casual California, so we can get away with this. I have our fancier stuff dry cleaned and sometimes I even remember to pick it up.

Grocery shopping we do all together on Saturday mornings (Trader Joe's is quiet at 9.00am!)

I go to Target on my lunch hour once every couple of weeks for other household shopping, and buy most of our clothes there, or online (while I'm at work, shh!)

My husband is in charge of buying pet food, and also he picks up groceries on the way home if we run out of anything (which happens often).

We both take care of our own cars (they never get washed or cleaned, and are developing their own ecosystems based upon stale milk spray and dry cheerios, but we each organize the service for our own car)
We don't have much free time, our daily newspaper invariably goes straight from its blue bag into the recycling bin, our dining room table is piled high with mail, magazines, children's artwork, dentist reminder cards and all manner of junk. Weekend time has to be devoted to household stuff. Our house is not as clean as we would like it to be (especially now in dog shedding season!), we often run out of milk and other essentials, sometimes we forget to pay a bill, and we eat too much pre-prepared frozen food. But we wash it down with a nice glass of wine, and get up the next day and do it all over again with a smile!

 

Some great tips from GeekyMummy. What advice would you give to another Buncher heading back to work after Baby #2?

 

Comments

[Ang]

I can so relate! Another little tip - I have a college girl that does our weekly grocery shopping and walmart/target runs for me. I pay her a weekly fee and she picks up my list and puts everything away. It is awesome AND has saved me a lot of money because I no longer impulse buy! If it isn't on the list, it doesn't get purchased.

[nmaha]

Wow! I like that you guys share a routine. We do the same here, though I must confess I only have one toddler, right now.

[ROBERTROJAS]

Cars and houses are expensive and not everyone is able to buy it. However, business loans was created to aid different people in such hard situations.

[Moncler Online]

Ban on women driving should be considered world wide... :-) I would never allow my wife driving my car.. :-)