Around the time the boys started school in September, I started truly panicking about the idea of going back to work. It was still five months away, but I knew back-to-school season was only a quick hop to Halloween, which would start the slippery slide down to Christmas and before I knew it, February would be upon us and I’d be back at work. I was so upset about it I cried with dread when I thought about it, barely half way through my maternity leave.<\/p>\n
I love being home with the boys. I love the chaos, I love the routine. I love picking the boys up from school. I love arguing Lucas into his four or five daily naps. I love the minutiae of daily errands in the afternoons. I love having the flexibility to know that if the laundry or the groceries don’t get done today, I’ll get to them tomorrow. Or the next day. I love preparing lunches and dinners during daylight hours. I love the feeling of killing time, of having time to kill, even if I have to kill it pacifying a fussy baby or playing endless rounds of Uno and Trouble and Wiggles Memory Game. Even when it all drives me bugshit and I’m sure I’ll lose my mind if I have to load and unload the dishwasher one more time, I still love it.<\/p>\n
When I started thinking about it, I realized I’ve been home with the boys almost three of the past six and a half years; basically, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom half of my parenting career. It’s a hell of a hard job, but I can honestly say it’s not nearly as difficult as trying to balance a home life with a full-time day job. I know I’m out on a limb here, but I truly believe that it’s way, way harder to be working outside the home than it is to stay home full time – especially with small children at home. Being home has it’s own set of challenges, but I was sick to my stomach trying to imagine how I’d balance the mother I wanted to be, the wife I wanted to be, and the employee I knew I would be expected to be. I couldn’t reconcile them all into a single person; there just wasn’t enough to go around.<\/p>\n
That’s why I approached my wonderful boss, who happens to also be a wonderful friend, and proposed that in February I’d return to work part-time, working four days a week instead of five. She was on board, and her boss seems to be on board, too. I checked out the ramifications (the biggest of which is the drop in salary) and figured we could make it work.<\/p>\n
It actually took me a couple of weeks to believe it could be possible, that it could really happen. I still feel giddy about it, like I’ve won the lottery. I’ll be able to work four days, but stay home for three days. There will be one day a week I can still hang out with the other moms at the kindergarten door, waiting for the JKs to come spilling out. There will be one day every week when I don’t have to rush out the door to catch a 6:25 am bus, so I can have breakfast with the boys. There will be one day a week where Lucas and I have a few precious hours with just the two of us, so I can continue to baby him. There will be one more day when my day with the boys doesn’t begin in a mad rush to get dinner ready, with bedtime shortly behind. <\/p>\n
Working part-time has been something I’ve been coveting since I first went back to work after my mat leave with Tristan, way back in 2003. It didn’t seem like we’d ever be able to make it work financially, and then it didn’t seem like my workplace would ever consider it. But, with fingers crossed and breath bated, the cosmic tumblers might have finally aligned in my favour on this one. <\/p>\n
Now, when I think of going back to work, my heart is light. Instantly, I stopped dreading it and started looking forward to it. I miss my old colleagues, and there is something validating about being a respected professional. I even love the work I do. And now, like a gift, I’ll be able to have the best of both worlds. I can’t believe how lucky I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Around the time the boys started school in September, I started truly panicking about the idea of going back to work. It was still five months away, but I knew back-to-school season was only a quick hop to Halloween, which would start the slippery slide down to Christmas and before I knew it, February would … Continue reading “Another dream comes true”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-working-and-mothering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}