For the best part of September, I have heard “Now they’re both at school are you enjoying all of your spare time?” or questions similar to that. I suppose the assumption is my only job is being Mum. I have to really think about my answer, as I don’t want to come across rude. But I am not just Mum. Obviously I am wife, daughter, grand-daughter, niece, sister, auntie and pet owner. But also, I work.  I am an employee, a manager and also a civil servant. Not forgetting blog owner, social media addict and photographer of sorts. I am a working Mum and proud of it too. 

So many responsibilities, so many hats and I have to wear them all through out the day, it’s quite crazy. Now that I have stopped to think about it, I don’t know how I do it somedays. I have lots of different types of Mum friends out there, Mums that do not work and Mums that do, similar to me. Everyone seems to always be just as busy, despite all doing very different things each day. But NO, just because my children are both now in full time education, I do not get to stop or relax, or simply do nothing. 

Today (including “spare time”)

A typical day for me, let’s take today for example, is made up of many hats including: Mum, pet owner, Wife, Daughter, Niece, Grand-daughter, employee, manager, friend, colleague, chef, gardener and cleaner. Yes, alright I jest, but you get the picture: 

6:30am – wake up. Get dressed. Do hair. Look presentable. Clean teeth. 

6:45am – grab school uniforms, that I neatly folded the night before, grab under wear for both children and ask them nicely to put them on and get ready. Whilst I do breakfast. 

7am – get kids to eat breakfast and drink my cup of tea with honey (hmm morning ritual). Feed dogs and cat. Give husband a huge hug and kiss, wave goodbye as he is off to start his day. 

7:25am – madly rush out of the door with children who I have managed to do their hair, get them to brush their teeth and are looking neatly dressed. They also have matching shoes on, so that’s a bonus. Book bags – check. PE kits – check. Coats – check. Handbag – check. Work laptop – check. Do I have matching shoes on? Yes. Awesome. 

7:40am – start journey to work after leaving children at the breakfast club. Call Grandma to make sure she is OK and listen to what she has on for the day. Grandma spends most of her time on her own, and because I can’t physically spend the days with her, I try to make as much effort as possible to speak with her. Then after I have spoken to Grandma, I speak to my Dad. (Bizarrely thats the first time I have ever said that publicly! For those that don’t know I didn’t know my Dad until 5 years ago, when I was 28, but that’s another story).  

8am – arrive at work. Working mum hat is firmly on now. Catch up on emails, to do lists (I have many), speak to colleagues, meet with colleagues, push forward my project work and make sure it’s all kicking along nicely. 

10:30am – leave work to travel to my next meeting, offsite. Speak with my employee as something came up that needed addressing! 

11am – arrive at destination, ready for meeting. I had to sit and watch a software demo for nearly 2 hours. I wanted to eat my hand by the time I got out of there. 

1pm – leave destination to get back home where I need to finish off my working day. Luckily I can log in remotely from home, so I got to eat my lunch and drink a nice cup of tea whilst on the phone to my staff and again, catching up with emails. 

2:30pm – log off from work. Clean up kitchen. Finish off a blog post. Email catch up with blog account and a little perusal on social media. Finish off some amendments to uncles website. 

3:10pm – leave to get kids from school with chocolate in hand! 

3:30pm – get back home. Let dogs out in the garden. Get kids uniforms off and into the washing machine. Hoover entire house. Steam mop the downstairs. Tidy play room. 

4:45pm – make kids tea. They asked for a picnic, so I made them up in their lovely lunch boxes which made them very happy. Win! 

5pm – Daddy’s home and gone again. He had to take Snoopy to the vets as he has bad ears again. 

5:15pm – tidy up kids dinner bits. Assess safety of trampoline game they are currently playing. Decide I need to mow lawn. Reply to messages I have been sent throughout the day, which I inadvertently ignored up until this point. 

5:20pm – kids now want to watch Hercules. So we all retreat to the sofa to watch that, well 15 minutes of it. At least I got to finish off messaging my family and friends. 

5:40pm – Daddy arrives back home with Snoopy, all OK, millions of tablets to give him. Daddy decides to take kids out on scooters, that means I can mow the lawn. Yippee. 

5:50pm – Mow the lawn and tidy up garden. 

6:30pm – finish off a review piece for blog. Take photos in garden of review piece. Take multiple silly selfies with my gardening hands (they’re brown from soil obviously). 

6:45pm – kids come back requesting snack and drinks. Daddy asks me what I want for dinner (I love that man). Daddy takes Noah to the shop to get the stuff in for the weekend. 

7pm – sit with Isla, listening to Disney songs in bed. I love snuggling her whilst she drifts off to sleep. She is a great snuggler. 

7:30pm – here I am. Waiting for Daddy and Noah to get home, so I can get Noah ready for bed and then enjoy a yummy curry, glass of Prosecco with Daddy and a movie. Oh and a bath. 

I will probably get to bed about 11pm, or fall asleep on the sofa whilst watching the movie, which usually happens on a Friday night. So that’s my day. That’s my spare time now the kids are in full time education. Don’t I have loads of it? I could almost LOL at people’s faces when I get asked that. But I don’t. I am usually polite, promise. I do have days when I just want to flop on the sofa and watch TV, without moving. That doesn’t happen very often. There is always a hat to wear… 

What is everyone else doing with their days now the children are at school? Enjoying the peace? Running around like a lunatic, like me? Are you a working mum? Do you find it hard? I would love to know your thoughts. 

Selfie from 6:30pm (ha-ha) 

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

Right, I better go and get Noah ready for bed. 

 

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1 Comment
  • DogsToLove
    Monday, October 3, 2016

    Woah that all sounds very good. I’m glad that you found time for yourself. More than just a mom, you are also a wonder.