Day in the Life Working Mommy Post - Jessica

Jessica from  these are the days... we will remember is our first guest blogger for the Working Mommy Post

thanks Jessica for taking the time to be apart of this series!

Hi I'm Jessica, I am excited to be linking up with Melissa on the working mom's series.

I started following Melissa when we were both pregnant with our first babies (born a few days apart) and have followed along with her ever since. Three years later we now have two babies and still working outside of the home.

This photo isn't perfect, but its real life. 

A day in our life

A typical day in our life starts at 6 o'clock in the morning. I wake, shower, get ready for work and then wake up the girls. Feed Emily her bottle and Abby a snack and we head out the door to grandma's house.

We live about 40 minutes from our work and my inlaws house. My mother in law is an absolute godsend and takes care of the girls for us. Since its Summer she usually keeps them Monday-Thursday and I keep them at home with me on Fridays while I work 6-10am from home.

We leave by 7am, and I drop the girls off by 7:45am, so that I can then be in the office by 8am. Ive worked for my current organization for over 12 1/2 years now. I love my job, my team, and my employer. Sure every day is a new adventure but working outside of the home helps me fulfill that need and also benefits us financially as well.

I work in the office from 8-4, taking a short break to heat up my lunch and walk with a friend if time allows. 4pm arrives and I quickly wrap things up and go get the girls. Most days Abby is still napping when I arrive to pick them up. I load the girls into the car and we head home.

We usually pull into the garage by 5:30 each evening, We come inside and Ill turn on Sprout on TV and start preparing their dinner. Andrew gets off of work at 5:30 most days and will be home by 6:30.

I feed the girls their dinner and clean up and go prep for the night. During this time we play, dance, watch a show, color, play playdoh, until Andrew comes home.

As soon as Andrew gets home we eat dinner, clean up and then take the girls for bath. Andrew usually bathes and dresses the girls while I prep our bags for the next day, or do a quick clean up of the house. By 8pm, I take Emily in and put her down to bed and Abby is usually watching a show on her iPad in her room with Andrew. 

(I want to share that until most recently Abby was staying up with us each night, and sleeping in bed with us. A few weeks ago we told her she could no longer sleep in our bed so she chose the floor of our room. After some hard nights last week, we are proud that she is now back to sleeping in her twin bed, in her bedroom)

9pm-11pm - Andrew and I are catching up on our days together attempting to stay awake.

Then we start it all over again!

Abby starts PK3 on August 28th and school will start every day at 7:45am - This will adjust our time schedule slightly, but I will be leaving work each day at 3pm to pick her up and then work a bit at home in the evenings.

How do household tasks done

Ill throw in a load a laundry a few evenings a week and dry and fold while watching TV. It helps to keep on top of things and not spending all day Saturday catching up. Same with dishes, I wash every night and then unload while preparing dinner the next evening.

Deep cleaning of the house is what gets postponed. I am a neat freak by nature so essentially at a glance my house is spotless. Hardwoods/Carpets are cleaned each week.. But don't look in that hall closet or my junk drawer. I need to purge and organize badly. But I just don't have the time right now.

I have some motivation to get stuff together just in time for our community yard sale in a few weeks and then the rest will be donated.

How do I spend quality time that counts with the girls

We have really scaled down the activities that we're doing on our "off" days as much as possible so that we can hang out with the girls at home. We like to take walks, spend evenings on the patio in the water table or just blowing bubbles.

During the week we spend the evenings after bath really soaking up the girls. We read, tell stories, laugh, dance, and enjoy our family time.

This is one of the things I have the most anxiety over. I just want to be in the moment. If I hear Abby repeat to me "One more second" just one more time I know that I've got to be more present with her.

How to spend time with your spouse

This has been most difficult, especially since going from a family of three to four. Weeknights are hard. Most evenings we fall into bed exhausted from the day without taking a few minutes with one another that we need to do.

We're trying to be better with this. Having Abby back in her room has helped. This week we are staying disconnected (no phones/laptops) and attempting to watch a few shows that we haven't gotten into yet together.

When possible we are doing a date night once a month. For August it'll be on the 31st since we have concert tickets to see John Mayer.

How to spend time with friends

Thankfully several of my girlfriends work in the same town as I do so we have an opportunity to catch up during our lunch hours at least once a month.

Getting married, growing older and building a house and having children has changed our relationships with our close group of friends and thats completely normal. We live in a neighborhood with lots of couples around the same age with small children and its been nice to form a little community.

Honestly we are still trying to figure this whole making times for ourselves thing out so time with couple friends happens infrequently. Our best friends are having there first baby girl this month and we are beyond excited for them.

What is next for us

We're preparing for Abby's first year in private school, still continuing to decorate and finish our house, and finding our home church.

I'd love to connect with more of you! Follow along with me on Instagram & Twitter  - jess0726