The Working Parent's Life

I'm a working parent as we all know. It's hard some days, and really hard other days. I miss my kids, I miss craftymama, and I miss being at home. I don't, at all, hate my job though, I like coming to work, I like what I do - which makes me feel even more guilty about being away from home. 

Usually I leave for work just after the kids wake up, and I am home just before dinner. That gives me a total of about 3 hours to see them during the week. On the weekends the boys go to cableman's house on Saturdays, and he comes here on Sundays. Glassman takes the girls to his house every other weekend, or stays at our house - so the weekends are filled with daddy time. It's a hard balance trying to get my time in on the weekends, which is why I enjoyed being the one to drive them to Nanaimo every Saturday. It gave me about an hour of uninterrupted alone time with them. I would turn the radio off and we would just talk for the hour it took my to get here - I would even drive the speed limit so I had more time with them. 

Time is a valuable thing, and there is never enough of it. 

Craftymama works from home too, so she misses out on a lot of what the kids do in the mornings (while she does her work). She works extremely hard at her job, as well as taking care of the kids. I couldn't ask for a better partner to share the working life with. I hate that she has to work too, I wish neither of us had to work and that we could both be at home, together, and parenting the children. 

This week, however, I have a crazy schedule between working and going to school. It's the only week it will be like this. I, originally, wasn't going to see the kids from Monday night until Sunday night. Thankfully, I got done early yesterday and was able to see them after dinner, and help put them to bed - I was so excited to be home with all of them. Yet, I think yesterday will be the only day I get off early, so I won't see the kids now until Sunday night, wherein I have promised them I would read the Berenstein Bears story to them, and they will remember. 

Because they will miss me, and I will miss them, Craftymama had the great idea of having a mailbox at home where they could write me letters and colour me pictures, and I would respond to them. So I would have some mail, and the kids would have a letter or pictures from me. I thought that was a great idea. Craftymama and the kids set it all up yesterday and I got my first Mii Mii Mail last night. It was wonderful to see their pictures and the captions on their pictures. It nearly brought a tear to my eye. I brought the pictures to work and they went in the binder where I keep all the kids' art they give to me for my work. I flip through it from time to time seeing how their drawings have changed over the course of two years. 

This is the only week it will be like this, just one week, and then we are back to our new normal schedule. I, and them, can make it through the week. Plus, I plan on calling them every day just to talk to them and see how they are doing. 

My Mii Mii Mail Box!

M makes a castle out of some cardboard he found - very creative for him. He was very proud. 

The boys reading their cousin C stories when he came to visit.