Balancing Act

I like to keep myself busy with many projects, jobs and activities, but sometime I find myself spread a little too thin.

I always wanted to be a working mother, when the time for kids came. I started working at the hospital about a year before my daughter was born. I love my job. I love who I work with, I love that I get to use my creativity, I love that it’s only a 5 minute drive from home, and I love that I have flexible hours. However, when I started this job I knew I’d have lots of off-time that I needed to fill, so I decided it would be a good time to start coaching high school cheerleading, become a merchandiser for a jewelry company (Chloe + Isabel) and design my church's bulletin each week, along with continuing to teach piano lessons and work on my Mann Made business. I was definitely keeping busy and probably adding un-needed stress in my life, but I loved everything I had my hands in, so I just kept going. Then a baby came. Suddenly all those things I had loved doing took a back seat to my new amazing daughter.

As the time came to start easing back into every day life I found each day becoming a new balancing act, but I was determined to keep doing everything I had been doing before I had Claire - but it definitely wasn't the same. A new school year started - with piano and cheerleading and many other little projects, while Chris starte swim team - morning practice, afternoon practice, Saturday practice, swim meets; then add attempting to keep things in order at home - make sure the dog is fed, pick up the house, do the never ending loads of laundry, load and unload the dishwasher...It's never ending. One night as I was trying to make a cheer schedule, put together the church bulletin and work on another design project my husband finally said it "you're spreading yourself too thin." There's a difference between balancing things and burying yourself.

Being a mom is a full-time job and the one I always want to keep top priority; and as I think to the future I can't really figure out if it's going to get easier or harder. As a baby they depend on you for everything; as they get older they can start to figure out things for themselves, but at the same time there's more they can get into. The nice thing is my so-called "balancing act" isn't something I need to figure out and get into place now. It's something I can continue to work on and adjust every year. And while I really do enjoy everything I do (coach, teach, design) I'd much rather hold my daughter than stare at my computer screen. I'd much rather play with her than teach piano. I'd much rather rock her to sleep than watch the cheerleaders at a football game. My family is my priority and I never want to lose sight of that.