My Life As A "Middle Mom"

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A friend asked me the other day about my job. I work from home as a virtual teacher. "Come on," he said, laughing. "What do you really do all day? I mean, how can you teach from home?"

You want to know what I do all day? I kick a@#.

See, I'm a "middle mom" - that means I'm one of the very lucky few women who gets to work at home so can be with my kids. (Or, depending on your point of view, one of the very few unlucky women...)

Every hour of my day is scheduled. Some days, every minute (no, I'm not being melodramatic).

Some days, I get up at 5 with my husband. While he gets ready to go to work, I turn on my computer and begin grading. Or creating lessons. Or dealing with attendance issues. Or withdrawals. Or any of the other hundred little tasks, that if I was at a brick and mortar school, I would be lucky enough to have a school secretary, registrar, VP, principal, department head, and dean of discipline handle.

If I'm ahead of my work, I get to reward myself by sleeping in until 6. I work every morning until 7 when I stop, get ready for my day, and put my "Mom" hat on - waking up the kids, getting breakfast, cuddling, and starting our day.

My kids eat breakfast and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while I respond to email until 9 o'clock, when the TV and computer go off, whether I'm done working or not. (Or whether the kids are done watching TV or not.)

And we are off - Disneyland, park, museum, zoo, library, play dates with friends. Preschool, grocery shopping, running errands, or dealing with the thousand other piles of little things that have to get done.

We are home by 12:30 for lunch and one more show before the kiddos are packed into bed for naps and I boot my computer back up. For the next two hours, I hit work hard. Phone calls begging for attendance to be entered, following up on grades, dealing with colleagues. Emails that do the same thing. And grading -- oh dear God, the grading. Wednesdays, I teach. Yes, I teach live lessons. No, my students cannot see me (thank God).

My kids wake up, and the computer goes off again. We play. We go for walks. We make different arts and crafts. My husband comes home from work and I closet myself into my bedroom (I mean, my home office) to work until dinner time.

Is it easy? Nope.

There have been times that I have handled parent phone calls while I am corralling my screaming son at the park. I have let important calls go to voice mail because I am snuggling my daughter on the couch. My house is always a mess (although, that was true when I wasn't working), dinner is normally out of a box or a bag three nights a week, and I have fallen into bed exhausted at 7:30 at night - half an hour before my children go to bed.

It takes discipline. And organization. And creativity. And TV. (After all, how else am I supposed to keep my kids quiet when I have to have an important conference call?)

And some days, it takes throwing the routine out the window and praying that I can get it all done.

Do I have it all? Not even close. (But then again, does anyone?) Alone time has to be scheduled - and it's often when I'm multitasking, by taking my kids to the babysitting room at the gym. Where I could once read a book a day, I now take three or four. I have about 30 hours of TV tivo'd for "later." Nap time for some SAHMs is sacred - its the time when Mommy gets to breathe. Nap time is when I work. And it breaks my heart some days when my daughter wraps her arms around my neck and nap time and asks me to lie with her "just for a little bit," and I have to say no because a parent is calling in 5 minutes.

I feel like I can't complain about how hard it is because I'm one of the "lucky ones" who gets to work at home. But I don't really fit into either role - working mommy or SAHM. Some of my SAHM friends don't understand why my kids and I can't always join them for a playdate - after all, I "work at home. Can't I work whenever I want?" Not always. Or my working mommy friends say with envy, "God, your life must be so easy." Yeah, not so much.

I'm exhausted, stressed, and completely and totally in love with my kids and what I do for a living. I just have to compartmentalize a bit. Okay, a lot.