Schedule of A Work From Home Mother

6:46 am- Email notifications blinking on phone. Rush downstairs in underwear before child wakes to read through them in peace, star the ones that need attention, pour two cups of scalding coffee down gullet, proceed to open windows and links you will have no time to read.

6:54- Whiny child descends downstairs. She needs some milk. she needs a graham cracker. She needs to pee. She needs to hold my face while she spews morning breath all over my half-written email on my phone and cry until she is sufficiently settled on the couch with a Curious monkey brightly displayed on the television. Distraction complete. Back to the computer.

7:02- Brood with growing anxiety that you have used the television as a babysitter so you could respond to a few people that are integral to your job performance. Decide that while you’re wallowing, you should multitask and pay bills.

7:03- Realize bills cannot be paid until you complete the work that is still staring at you, blinking, from now, 5 open windows.

7:06- Decide it’s for the good of your child that you have chosen to work from home, shrug off the guilt by promising to whip up nutritious lunch.

7:34- Child catches on that you are attempting a phone call. Decides to remove all articles of clothing and scream into receiver that you are not listening to her. Apologize and promise you’ll call again later for more details knowing that he will never pick up the phone for you again.

9:37- Child in the same spot on the couch as two hours ago. Has now spread peanut butter along the arm but you have decided that 20 minutes of silence is worth the cleanup. Back to the writing and the emailing and the posting and the calling.

10:34- Growing anxiety of trying to monitor child and complete work has life of its own. You need a break from the stress and get up for another cup of coffee. You make another pot, take a breath, say a prayer.

Noon- No work has been done. You are exhausted. Your kid has peed on the floor. Twice. Just to get your attention. You decide a change of scenery would be good for both of you. You attempt Panera for mac and cheese and stare longingly at all of the other stay at home moms who do not have blinking phones and open windows and are staring lovingly into their child’s cheese smeared faces. You hate them. And then you cry. And then you stop because that's stupid. You walk next door to Petco and ooooooohhhh and ahhhhhhh with your three year old about the glow in the dark fish. You feel like a great Mother. You are a great Mother.

12:48- You put child in the car and pray she falls asleep. Please fall asleep. Please for the love of God fall asleep. You are a terrible Mother. Terrible.

1:48- Child finally falls asleep. You are out of gas. You have 13 percent left on your phone. You park and call back in a whisper and have a phone conversation uninterrupted, sitting in your driveway like a weirdo.

2:06- You bring your sleeping child inside to her bed and say Hail Marys to keep her down for at least an hour. You are not Catholic. You don’t think Mary will mind.

3:02- You have made a phone call. You have written three emails and established new contacts. You have written a decent story, with pictures. You are amazing. You can do this. You love this. Super Mom. You are Super Mom.

3:03- She wakes up. You hate this. You turn off the computer because it keeps notifying you of more shit you need to do that you will now not have time to do. You have no groceries to make dinner.

3:30- You throw crabby, disheveled child in the car with the promise of an ice pop to the grocery store. You check emails waiting in line to checkout. Your kid climbs out of the cart while you are distracted and hits her elbow. She screams. You are the lady in the line with the cart full of groceries and a screaming child because you were looking at emails on your phone. You want to scream, “It’s for work! I’m not trolling Instagram!” They won’t care. You shouldn’t care. Your kid is crying and you are not thinking about if she could be really hurt. Are you hurt? You assess. Red marks. There will be a bruise. You put phone away. You cry.

4:47- Recheck emails- Did you open this? Did you see this? Did you respond to this? Happened when you put your phone away. You stir dinner on the stove while you click out responses. you burn your finger. Your kid is now rolling in the peanut butter on the couch that you forgot to clean. Husband comes home. How was your day? You cry. Wonderful. You put child in bath.

6:04- Dinner, fed, cleaned, family time spent worrying about what I could be missing elsewhere. Chastise myself for not being present with my family. Hide my phone. throw tablecloth over desktop.

10:45- Husband took bedtime duty-AGAIN- so you could finish working. It should only take a few minutes.

12:36- It did not only take a few minutes. Go upstairs. Check-in on sleeping child and husband. Hit pillow. Repeat tomorrow.