The Wallace Family
Thanks to Melissa for hosting this wonderful working mommies series. I'm always up for new ideas to help our home run a little smoother.
My name is Amber and my blog is The Wallace Family. I am mom to Morgan (13 mo.-May 28, 2010) and wife to Chad. Chad and I have been married for eight years. We live in the deep south- Mississippi to be exact.
I am a working mother (well, for nine months of the year) I am a high school business teacher and love my job! Not only do I help shape the future of our community, our state and our nation, I get the summers off as well as Spring Break, Thanksgiving week, and two weeks off at Christmas/New Years.
My husband happens to work in the same district but works in the district office. He gets the same holidays, but he has to work during the summer. It happens to be his busiest time of year. In fact, the last month has been crazy in his world. Our district is very family friendly and realizes that sometimes having a family takes you away from work. It is a great feeling to be able to take off when Morgan is sick and not feel guilty about it.
This upcoming year will be my fifth year of teaching. This year my teaching schedule includes teaching Digital Video, Digital Photography, and Web Design- a fun schedule! I get the privilege of teaching the kids that want to take my class instead of the kids that have to take my class. I try to have fun with the kids but also teach them the concepts of say, photography. There’s more to it than just snapping a picture, and when a teenage girl figures that out - watch out!
While we are at work, Morgan attends a parochial school that has a infant/toddler daycare. Once she is two years old, she is transitioned to a more traditional school format, but right now, she’s just hanging out with other kids in a daycare setting. She does get to enjoy story time, music time, nap time and gets to play outside. We are very fortunate because the school has a long waiting list - we actually got a call the Thursday before she was supposed to start on Monday that there was an opening. Of course, we jumped on that opportunity.
We have been nothing but happy with them and when your little girl wants to hug on her teacher a little longer it makes you realize that you made the right decision for her to stay. She moved up to the next room in June and she has only been a few times since Ive been at home. Her new teachers are wonderful and she has a little smaller room which will be nice.
We still struggle sometimes to make things run as perfectly as I would like but it has gotten much easier the longer we have had Morgan. Our biggest thing is to have each other and to help out with the daily chores (laundry, dishes, straightening up). We try to straighten up each night before going to bed. Usually I do laundry, cooking, and some straightening up. Chad does the dishes, straightening up, and all the outside stuff.
Meal planning is probably one of the biggest things that I am still struggling with I just haven’t found a perfect system yet. I just joined Pinterest (the most addicting site ever!) and I am trying to move all my recipes over and actually organize those into categories. I think hopefully this will help to plan some. We were going to try out E-Mealz but just haven't done it. Maybe one day I can do meal planning well. For meals usually I try to do plan 3-5 meals a week. Sometimes we just eat quick meals, but I try real hard to cook at least 3 meals but again it doesn't always happen that way. My parents usually cook for us 2-3 times a month which is nice because we always have leftovers. We always have church on Sunday night so usually we don't have to plan for that unless we have community group at our house. I saw this post on Meal Planning and it gave me a few ideas hopefully to help out.
Being a working parent I have learned that things will not always work out the way you want. Some days I plan on cooking a meal and we both have rough days and its out to eat we go. We try not to eat out much especially now that Morgan is so much more difficult to take out being so mobile. Having a spotless house doesn’t happen everyday but we try to keep it presentable.
Our schedules are always synced up at all times with our iPhone. I can always know what Chad has going on and vice versa. Its one thing that I definitely love and don't know how we ever did without it! With both of us working in technology for our jobs it keeps us up to speed.
Our Schedule come next month
5:30-6:00: I get up start getting ready for the day
6:15-Chad gets up to get ready
6:30-6:40: Morgan gets up
6:50: I head out the door and Chad’s in charge of Morgan
7:00-7:10: Chad leaves to take Morgan to daycare
Morgan eats breakfast and lunch at daycare. This is provided in the price we pay for daycare.
7:20-7:30-I arrive at school (traffic is usually terrible and it takes anywhere from 30-40 minutes)
7:30: Chad gets to work
8:00-School starts for the day
I get 90 minutes each day to do planning for school which usually is enough time to get things done. I try to really utilize this time to grade things and plan so I don't have to do it at night. Our district just gave teachers who went through the class a brand new Mac Book Pro so if I do have to bring home anything this will definitely help.
3:15-3:30: I get off and head to pick up Morgan unless we have a faculty meeting.
4:00-4:15: pick up Morgan and head home
4:05-4:20: Home sweet home
4:30-5:00-Morgan usually takes a little cat nap (30 min) when we get home because she is worn out from daycare. I usually play with her if she doesn't want to take a nap or just relax for a few minutes until Chad gets home.
4:30-Chad gets off work
4:50-5:00-Chad gets home
5:00-5:30-cook dinner (Chad plays with Morgan)
5:30-6:00-eat dinner, talk about our day
6:00-7:30-play with Morgan
7:30-take a walk (this is always a nice time to talk about our days and just enjoy some family time-Morgan loves to go on a walk. Its our little bit of fitness even though I know its not much)
8:00-start getting ready for bed (bathtime, read book/s, etc)
8:30-watch Little Einsteins and rock (Ive always done this)
9:00-out
9:00-10:00-we do devotional (love Tabletalk), relax, read blogs, straighten up, etc.
9:45-10:00-in bed
I'm still learning each and everyday about working outside the home and still balance life. Feel free to email me at chadandamberwallace@me.com or leave me a comment on my blog at The Wallace Family.
