The amount of noise that surrounds me at this moment is obnoxious. My three kids are home on summer vacation, and for the first time in any of their lives I am actually trying to work a professional job at the same time as I am trying to not lose my sanity or ruin their day. I have children bumping into my arms as I type, loud toys being banged together and smashed against furniture (knight battles be fierce, dontcha know), little girls singing snippets of songs over and over again, interpersonal kid issues being worked out – all within 3′ of me, because I am the center of their universe. They revolve around me, and when I move, they move with me. I don’t think they do it consciously, but do it they do. So today, my focus is how to maintain the concentration needed to perform my tasks efficiently while not being a jerk to my offspring.

One thing I have found that works for me is to have my planner open within arms reach, at all times, so when I am inevitably interrupted by – oh, here we go, apparently Adele is great background music for the knight battle, just the chorus though not ever the whole song – any number of things, I can jot down where I was or what I need to remember to do when I can pick my things back up. If I need to take a call, I – and no, I am not ashamed of this tip – have lollipops on standby because those things are like pacifiers for older kids. Please, god, not Cotton-Eyed Joe, I can’t handle it. I have to remind myself a lot that when you work in an office, you get interrupted, you take breaks, you get up and go to the bathroom or go get a cup of coffee, or go out for lunch. So just because I am working at home, doesn’t mean my butt is glued to this chair 24/7. On the flip side, if I throw in the towel and accept the fact that these people don’t care about money or paying bills or personal and professional success, then I can do some work later when my backup-honey gets home. Beyonce live literally gives me the chills, I’m not afraid to admit it.

My time is billed hourly, which is tricky. Some weeks are better than others from a billing standpoint, which can be a bummer because dolla dolla bills, y’all! (wait, what? who was that?) But honesty has to be the number one priority when you bill your time to a company. If that means one week you bill 20 hours and roll around naked on your bank statement, and then the next week you bill 5 hours and cry into your generic coffee creamer, well – that’s how it has to be. Don’t be a liar – if you didn’t do the work, you can’t ask for the money. I have to track my time down to the minute because I am interrupted constantly, and I don’t want to literally shortchange myself. Another thing the open planner is handy for, by the way. I also keep track of the time I devote to my various volunteer activities, just for my own edification. When I do the social media account work for the 4 non-profit pages I manage, I tend to not do the paid social media work at the same time – mostly because there are more effective times of the day to post to various platforms than others, and I want to prioritize those accounts that are looking for revenue and SEO generation as opposed to local exposure. I also take full advantage of the ‘drafts’ feature that facebook offers, it is a godsend for when you know you will be busy in the coming days but want to maintain social media momentum, and aren’t ready to commit to a particular topic on a particular day as you do with scheduling posts. I am as rigorous about my unpaid work as I am about the paid work – I need to be seen as a reliable and valuable asset, and that means doing what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it. You know, adulting.

Speaking of, as part of adulting, I gotta make sure these peeps don’t burn the house down, so more on another day. If you’re lucky, I’ll detail how I handle nap time and working (hint: those don’t happen at the same time, ever, because napping is sacrosanct. For me.)

Children are such a joy, aren’t they? They’re cuddly, interesting, sweet little humans who, given the barest wisp of an unfulfilled need or desire, turn into relentless automatons of repetitive request. I have three children, and they each have their own unique, special style of approaching need fulfillment. My oldest, A, dances around the edges of nagging, swooping in and dropping a hint or a question, then swooping back out of range of parental irritation before conscious acknowledgement sets in. He’s like a seagull. He doesn’t forget, but he is quick and he stays out of the danger range. My youngest child, B, is like the tide – relentless and always changing but never ever ceasing when she wants something. Ebs and flows, the intensity varies, but it never goes away. My middle child… aw, my sweet C. She is the one who will break you. She never loses sight of her end goal, no matter what it may be. From something as simple as what she can have for a snack, to what she would like for her birthday, to the ever popular ‘can we go out for dinner?’, she modifies her style as appropriate, she changes tactics depending on her audience, she is overt and covert and basically the Ethan Hunt of forceful reminding. Forceful reminding – that’s my new phrase for nagging, easily interchanged with ‘Jesus please make it stop’ – which ever suits my needs at the time. Anyway, as I am starting out on my own small business venture, I am at the same time continuing with my daily duties as a stay at home mother. My older two are in school – for 4 more days, cue mixed emotions – but my youngest is home with me still, until the fall when she starts kindergarten – cue all the emotions. In addition to home stuff, and mother stuff, I also serve on several local boards and committees, and volunteer at our local food pantry. I like to keep busy, and I have found that volunteerism is a lovely way to feel useful and generous on a larger scale (I’m not one of those stay at homes who finds being a stay at home completely fulfilling, for whatever reason) while at the same time making valuable contacts within your community. We all know about the dreaded ‘resume gap’ that happens when you decide to stay at home with your kids, and volunteering is one way to dance around a lapse of paid experience. For instance, I manage the social media accounts of 2 local non-profits, both of which are high-visibility. I have spearheaded social media campaigns to increase community awareness and involvement, and also to fundraise, successfully. Had I been working a part-time retail position, I would not have had those opportunities. Now here is where I say the obligatory ‘there’s nothing wrong with retail, nothing wrong with being a stay at home parent’ – yes. Obviously those things are true. But for me personally, about 5 years into this motherhood thing I started to notice this little dark cloud in my subconscious, whispering “hey Kate – this is cool and all, but sooner or later you’re going to freak out because you’re treading water”. As an attempt to avoid a fairly inevitable midlife crisis, I began to reinvent myself. (Hey, B. is hungry. She needs something right this second, even though she just had breakfast a half hour ago. She cannot wait. She is hungry right now. Now. Yes, she has legs and can walk into the kitchen, but it’s better when I decide what she wants. I have to figure that out right now.) And so, I begin at the bottom. I am working my contacts, I am using my skills, and my time, and my snack-making prowess, and I will make it happen. I hope you join me.

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