Passion, Interrupted

Imagine that a giant electrical storm is about to destroy the internet, and I can share one last message. This is it:

I am the mom of two little kids. In my daily life I do a lot of wiping – bottoms, countertops, walls that someone ‘decorated’. It is not inspiring work, so while I wipe I let my mind fly free to other times and places. I use my imagination, much like the little people I wipe up after, to try on hats like opera singer, teacher and writer. Sometimes, with some hats, I get a tingle up my spine. An electricity speaks to me, and it says yes. This.

Unfortunately, life with little kids doesn’t allow me much time to pursue my passions. At least not the big ones, and not all at once. So I settle for small things – sewing myself a skirt, working in my garden, dragging myself out of bed while it’s still dark to see the Olympic Torch. When I can’t do it all I remind myself that my kids will not be little forever. Sooner (much sooner) than I expect, I will have quiet time and free hands.

In the meantime, there has been this blog, this precious space on the internet. I shared it with you, we cheered each other on, and it made my heart sing. I didn’t feel so silly. I dreamed bigger and more freely. I hope that you did, too. We reminded each other that dreams are worth pursuing, and that passion and community matter.

One day, when I’m ready to follow my heart, my dreams will be there, waiting for me. I have this space, and you, to thank for that. For reminding me who I am, and what I feel passionate about.

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I wrote this post for Mabel’s Labels BlogHer ‘10 Contest. I know I said that I wasn’t going to BlogHer, but if I win the contest I will make it happen. So wish me luck!

Bloggers are Real People

It’s Thursday and I’m Crafting my Life! March’s theme is blogging. Last week I talked about blogging your dreams. This week, I’m talking about the literal community of bloggers.

I like to wax poetic about online community and how supportive it can be, and it is. But as much as we talk about the virtual support, it can sometimes be hard to remember that there are real, live people on the other side of the screen. Or, I suppose, somewhere in front of another computer that is connected to yours through a series of tubes.

The people reading your words and maybe (or maybe not) sharing their own have their own lives going on. They bring their own experiences and biases and current moods with them when they read your blog. I re-learn that regularly, as commenters interpret my words much differently than the way I meant them to be understood. This is fine, really. I receive some of my best insights when the conversation veers in a direction I never would have expected. I have learned not to take my posts too personally, and I’m giving up the need to be clearly understood at all times. Blogging is a fluid thing, and while this virtual space is primarily mine I do not need to control every word that appears here.

You learn lessons like that through blogging, many lessons. I have learned that the best way to get better at writing is to just do it, and do it a lot. I have learned that I don’t really enjoy personal conflict, and I prefer to address people’s questions or comments one-on-one through email. Long debate threads are fun to read, but hosting them makes me sort of nervous. I suppose I have learned that I get far more of a thrill from positive feedback than is maybe strictly healthy. Through these lessons you can figure out what works best for you, and tailor your online experience accordingly.

Blogs are still a relatively new platform, and they are fundamentally individual. What I do, and the way I blog, works for me. It might not work for you. I post photos of my kids and use their real names. My last name is embedded in my blog title. I post 6 days a week, even on days when I have other posts appearing elsewhere. I use Twitter prolifically, and comment on other blogs a lot. I try to keep my posts under the 700 word mark, and rarely or never go about 1000 words. But I admire other bloggers who do none of those things. This is about finding your own way, there’s no single right way to blog.

Bloggers are real people, just as our readers are real people. We have strengths and weaknesses and weird idiosyncrasies. The best way to learn that is to get together with a bunch of them, like I did last weekend. Vancouver-area Twitter mamas (and papas) met up for brunch. There were babies, toddlers and awkward greetings when you feel you know someone you’ve never actually met. There were comfortable conversations and jokes and note sharing from people who understood what it’s like to be a blogger. But mostly, it was just a bunch of women getting together for a social outing. The little ones who came along were remarkably well-behaved, and 4 of us who came without kids hung out for over an hour after everyone else left reveling in our freedom.

I have to thank the amazingly real Nicole for organizing the meet-up, and my also real friend and fellow suburbanite Carrie for sharing the car ride and helping me get back in one piece. I was delighted to see Michelle, Crunchy Carpets and Left Coast Mama again. I was thrilled to meet, in person, Alexis, Janet, Stephanie, Marilyn and Harriet, who gave me a hug right away. Harriet is very real. And I was perhaps most thrilled to meet Scattered Mom, who baked us all cookies and packaged them in lovely little bags.

The people who attended that brunch all have their own approaches online. Our sites have different content and platforms and audiences. But I’m willing to bet you that none of us enjoys receiving negative comments, or maybe even worse, no comments. None of us likes feeling like the odd one out or the low man on the blogging totem pole. We all value the community we’ve found through blogging, and through befriending other bloggers in real life. There are commonalities, even in the middle of the differences, just like anywhere else in life. We are all people underneath it all.

So tell me, have you learned things about yourself through blogging, and cultivated your own blogging style? And have you met other bloggers or Twitter users in real life? How does getting together with other bloggers change your perspective on blogging? I’d love to hear!

March’s Crafting my Life series is about the whys and hows of blogging, and what blogging means to pursuing your dreams. On the last Thursday of the month, which just happens to be the 25th, I will include a link up. To participate, write a post on this month’s theme anytime in March, or track down a post you’ve written on the subject sometime in the past, and add yourself to the list. Then read everyone else’s ideas and thoughts and be inspired! Check out the link-ups from January and February to get a feel for how it works.

My Shampoo-Free Experiment

Have you heard about no poo? In spite of the slightly unfortunate-sounding name, it has nothing to do with your bathroom habits. It’s short for ‘no SHAMpoo’, and it’s about ditching traditional hair cleaning products in favour of more natural choices. No poo’s following is growing, and people choose it for a variety of reasons.

Some people don’t like the idea of using chemical-laden personal care products. Modern shampoos typically contain artificial colours and fragrances, and a variety of ingredients that haven’t been specifically tested for long-term toxicity or carcinogenic effects. Shampoo and conditioner usually come in plastic bottles, and there are problems with recycling plastic. And some people find that their hair is healthier and more manageable when they don’t use shampoo.

Prior to going shampoo-free

I decided to try going shampoo-free myself. I attempted it once before, but I didn’t really commit and I didn’t really follow the recommended procedure. After a few days I gave up. This time I committed to two weeks shampoo-free, and I tracked down the suggested apple cider vinegar in a glass bottle. I like the idea of reducing my plastic consumption, as well as my exposure to chemicals. I was also hoping that ditching shampoo would somehow net me miraculous hair results.

Day 2 shampoo-free

Another shot of day 2 shampoo-free

I am washing my hair using baking soda, and rinsing it in an apple cider vinegar solution. What I do is wet my hair, and then mix 1-2 tsp baking soda with a little water to make a paste. I spread it through my hair, starting at my scalp, and then rinse. I have re-purposed an old 8-ounce shampoo bottle for the apple cider vinegar. I put in about 2-3 tablespoons of the vinegar, filled the rest of the bottle with water, and added a few drops of essential oils to make it smell not so vinegar-y. I squirt a few tablespoons of this solution on my hair and then rinse it out.

Day 4 shampoo-free

It’s been two weeks now, what’s the verdict? I would say my feelings are mixed. My hair feels very much like it did when I was a kid – it’s softer than it was, but also very thin and fine. And I have not achieved the results that some people report, where they can go days without washing their hair. I have tried skipping a day, and I end up having to keep my hair in a ponytail when I do that, because it gets greasy. I have oily hair in the first place, and giving up shampoo hasn’t eliminated that.

Day 10 shampoo-free

Day 10 shampoo-free from the front

Having said that, the results aren’t awful. I asked my husband if my hair looked different and he appeared befuddled and confused. No one else has said anything, either. My feeling is that for the most part, any differences I’m seeing are undetectable to others. I think that I will keep up the shampoo-free experiment for now, and since I am showering every day anyway, if I have to wash my hair it’s not exactly a huge inconvenience.

What about you? Have you tried no poo? Any tips, tricks or disaster stories? Please share!

International Women’s Day, One Day Late

This is one day late, but I wanted to share it. Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and I spent the day reflecting on my experience as a woman, and the challenges that I feel women (and men) in our society still face.

I was born in the mid 70s, to hippies who rejected the cultural mainstream. My father wore long hair and a long beard, and worked as a self-trained goldsmith. He made jewelry in the back of our house and sold it out of a room in the front. My mother left her job at a bank to stay home when I was born. In my house the adults chopped wood for heat and held meditation circles, and until I was almost 9 years old nobody held a ‘real’ job.

My parents wanted my sister and me to believe we could be anything we wanted to be. In the late 70s and early 80s it was a popular message, and a lot of TV shows reinforced the idea. There was a common storyline that went like this: a hapless man is looking for ‘Dr. Pat Smith’, only to discover that the woman he assumed was the receptionist is actually the good doctor. Hilarity ensues. We learned not to judge a book by its cover, and that women could be doctors just as well as nurses.

I believed it. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do something based solely on my gender. I think most of us got the message, because you don’t see Dr. Pat Smith on TV anymore. She’s no longer considered noteworthy, although I am tremendously grateful for her example.

In high school I did just as well in math and science as English and French. After high school I attended engineering school, where I was surprised to find that women made up only 20% of the students in my classes. I never felt singled out or discriminated against, but it is hard not to notice when the gender numbers are overwhelmingly skewed against you.

I worked as an engineer, in a male-dominated environment, for 5 years before my daughter was born. I was treated with the same respect as my male colleagues, and I generally liked my job. The work environment was comfortable and I was paid well. We had team-building activities and treats on Wednesdays and flex time. My co-workers’ offices were filled with math textbooks and photos of their children, and there were company-wide policies ensuring that all employees were treated fairly.

Things changed a bit once I was pregnant. People joked that I was leaving them to have a baby. I didn’t laugh. I wondered why my decision to procreate implied that I was abandoning my post, but my male colleagues’ similar decisions did not. I wondered why I was asked if I had to work, and my husband was not.

I used all of the year-long maternity leave available to me. When I returned to work I negotiated a part-time schedule, in an attempt to find some kind of balance. I understood that working less and telecommuting would affect my career trajectory, at least for a time. I was willing to sacrifice some of my professional advancement, though – kids grow quickly and I didn’t want to miss it.

Still, questions nagged at the back of my mind. Why was I naturally the one who worked less (and now only sporadically) once the babies came? Would I be able to recover from my time on the mommy track? How come it was so hard to find quality childcare? And why don’t more fathers take advantage of flexible work policies or parental leave?

Over my lifetime Dr. Pat Smith and I have seen gender roles shift. Pretty much any career path is open to a woman if she chooses to pursue it. In my home housework is evenly distributed, and my husband does nearly all of my laundry. We do our best to approach parenting with gender neutrality. I don’t feel that the balance of power swings one way or the other.

And yet the glass ceiling still exists, especially for mothers. While parental leave is available to most fathers in Canada, only 11% of them use it. It’s still uncommon to for men to work alternative schedules to care for children. Working mothers still sometimes hear statements like, “Why even have kids if you’re not going to raise them?” Women bear the brunt of child-rearing, and face most of the conflict over balancing career and family.

I wish that everyone had better access to family-friendly work policies, and that there wasn’t a stigma for using them. I suspect many men feel the same way. There are dads who would enjoy being at-home parents, or taking one day a week off to volunteer in their kid’s classroom. Our current system does not exactly work perfectly for anyone.

On International Women’s Day I am so grateful for my feminist foremothers, who fought so that I could be an engineer and have access to birth control and maternity leave and daycare. I am grateful to live in a country where my rights are recognized and my standard of living is not significantly diminished because of my gender. But I am reflecting on the work there is still to do. I am considering how I can contribute to creating a world that is more equitable for everyone, which better celebrates diversity and variety in life paths and choices. That is the world that I hope my children and grandchildren will inherit.

Blogging Your Dreams

It’s Thursday and I’m Crafting my Life! March’s theme is blogging. This week, I’m talking about blogging your dreams, and why that can be a really great thing.

My husband Jon started this blog in May, 2003, which means that it’s pretty old as far as blogs go. I have posted regularly here for over 6 1/2 years, now, but it took me a long time to figure blogging out. In fact, I didn’t like the idea of a blog when Jon first set it up. I made him create a landing page that had links, including one to ‘Amber’s Thoughts’ or something like that. I declared he should not use the word blog, because what was a blog anyway, and why would I want one?

For years, I kept up this blog and visited others, but rarely commented. I have some social anxiety, and I was convinced that somehow I would say the wrong thing in someone’s comment section and suffer abject humiliation. I was also afraid that people would follow me back to my own blog, not like what they saw, and more abject humiliation would result. When I decided to start extending myself more, I would leave a comment for someone and then go hide in my bedroom. Because, you know, if I stayed in front of my computer they could see me or something.

Once I got over my fears and started reaching out beyond my own thoughts I discovered something amazing – a fabulously supportive online community. The truth is that there are countless blogs out there. If someone doesn’t like mine, or yours (although who wouldn’t, we’re both lovely), they will just move on. Similarly, if I come across a blog that doesn’t really speak to me, I will just move on, too. But a lot of the time, when I find someone that I think is great they think I’m not too bad, myself. In our words we recognize commonality, and it is really a fabulous gift.

The true value of this gift came to me full force when I lost my job almost a year ago. I went into a bit of a tailspin, trying to figure out what to do next. Getting laid off forces some soul-searching, because you can’t really just continue in the well-laid and secure path you have set out for yourself. You need to, at minimum, look for another well-laid and secure path. Or, some of us decide to scrap our well-laid and secure paths, and embark on a journey to craft our lives into something new.

Anyways, when my life was all up in the air and I felt discouraged and unsure, I had this space. I shared a lot of my fears and dreams with you. It was scary, I’ll admit it. Putting yourself out there like that can leave you feeling pretty vulnerable. The last thing in the world that you want to hear is that someone thinks your dreams are silly or that your fears are justified and you probably do suck. But I didn’t hear that. I heard lots and lots of positive feedback, and encouragement, and support. I heard that I was not alone, and that other people had the same thoughts and fears. I even heard that some people had fulfilled their own dreams.

Not everyone feels as comfortable as I do sharing their thoughts with the internet at large. And not everyone has to – blogging is hardly a pre-requisite to a life well-lived. But I personally wish that I had figured out how the blogging community works much sooner than I did. My life is much the richer for it.

How about you? Has blogging about your dreams helped you? Have you found a supportive community online? Please share!

March’s Crafting my Life series is about the whys and hows of blogging, and what blogging means to pursuing your dreams. On the last Thursday of the month, which just happens to be the 25th, I will include a link up. To participate, write a post on this month’s theme anytime in March, or track down a post you’ve written on the subject sometime in the past, and add yourself to the list. Then read everyone else’s ideas and thoughts and be inspired! Check out the link-ups from January and February to get a feel for how it works.

What I Learned in February 2010

Monthly reviews are my favourite tradition. Here’s how it works – every month I come up with some things I learned. Then, I ask you all to join in with some recent revelations of your own. And we all learn and grow and what-not. Or at least share a laugh at our own expense, because some of these lessons are both hard-fought and funny. Sound good?

So, without further ado, here are some things that I learned in February.

Things I learned in February

1. I discovered what it’s like to have an 18-month-old and a 5-year-old. The verdict? Sort of crazy, but in the best possible way.

2. I learned that walks to nowhere are sometimes the best kind.

3. I found out the hard way that you should always schedule your pet’s veterinary appointments for a time when you won’t have to bring your children along.

4. I discovered, once again, that sprinkles really do make any cake better.

5. I found some peace and redemption when one of the articles that I submitted was declined. Here’s the thing – your work can be good, even if it isn’t the right fit for one particular venue. And no one else thinks badly of you for trying, and trying again, and not succeeding. Life is about making mistakes and learning from them, after all.

6. You need a shocking amount of documentation to register your child for kindergarten. And you will cry at least once on the outing, wondering where the time went and how your baby can possibly be going to kindergarten already.

7. I remembered that I am just not that good at solo parenting, as I did it for most evenings this month. I could probably become good at it if I needed to, but I’m glad that I don’t need to.

8. I discovered the joy of cinnamon bark.

9. I re-learned how suddenly the end of February creeps up on you. February is short, yo!

10. I saw communities come together, in the most inconvenient circumstances possible, just to glimpse the Olympic Torch. I felt awe-struck.

What about you? What did you learn in February? Please share!

When the Time Isn’t Right

It’s Thursday and I’m Crafting my Life! February’s theme is time management. In the past few weeks I wrote about the nature of having no time, how I’m learning to seize the moment and how it’s hard to find time with small children underfoot. This week, I’m talking about recognizing when the time isn’t right. I also have links at the end of this post to some other fabulous bloggers and their thoughts on time management, so be sure to check them out!

At the end of my post last week I said that if what you’re doing is soul-destroying, it’s probably not your dream. And back in January when I talked about goal-setting I said that you don’t have to run off and achieve all of your dreams right now. Dreams have no expiration date. Today, I’d like to explore both of these ideas a little further, in the context of BlogHer 2010.

BlogHer is a big annual conference of women bloggers, and it’s being held in New York City from August 5-7 this year. I really, really wanted to go. I didn’t go last year because Jacob was not even 1 year old yet, but he was mobile and not-so-portable so I settled instead for attending the I’m Not Going to BlogHer Pity Party. I made grand promises that next year, which is now this year, I would make it to BlogHer. It’s a huge networking event, and it would be chance to meet all the bloggers I read and love. It’s being held in a city that I’ve long wanted to visit. My husband has more than enough frequent flyer miles saved up to send me there and back.

But. But, but, but. New York is very far from Vancouver. The conference is the week before Jacob’s 2nd birthday, and I expect that he will still be breastfeeding. I don’t think that I will be ready to be away from him for 3 nights. I tried to convince Jon to come along and turn it into a family vacation, but he doesn’t relish the idea of spending days and nights alone with a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old in a bustling and busy city, and I can’t blame him. While I could see taking the kids to New York at some point, the ideal time would not be when they’re still so young. I could bring Jacob myself, but traveling alone with a 2-year-old scares me, and would seriously limit my ability to participate.

This has been a months-long internal struggle for me. I want to go, but I most emphatically do not want to leave my nursling for several nights. I know that other moms make different decisions, and I support their choice. Please do not read judgment here, because I honestly have none. I have waffled back and forth on this so many times, convinced I should just go and that it would all be fine, and then equally convinced that my toddler would hate me for leaving him. The longest I have ever been away from my 5-year-old is 24 hours, and usually around the 23 hour mark I get antsy.

A couple of things helped me to make my personal decision. The first was reading Annie at PhD in Parenting’s thoughts about leaving her kids. She said that when her kids were old enough to hold a phone conversation and understand when she would return she found that she was able to leave them with family members. Jacob is not at all verbal and has no idea what time means, and I doubt that will change substantially in the next 5-6 months. The second thing that helped me was listening to Meagan Francis and Gina Crosley-Corcoran talk about raising big families on BlogTalk radio. Meagan is a mom of 5 and she pointed out how short kids’ early months and years really are.

Here’s the thing – some times are harder than others. Some times are not the right times to pursue one particular dream or goal. And that’s OK. It is OK to put something on the backburner for a while as you have a baby or finish school or deal with a health issue or save up your downpayment. It does not mean the end of your dream. If the struggle is driving you crazy, you can let it go, at least for a while. I was so caught up in BlogHer 2010 that I forgot there will be a BlogHer 2011 and a BlogHer 2012 and a BlogHer 2017. No, they won’t be the same. But they will be fabulous in their very own ways. They might even be a little bit closer to home or more accessible to me for other reasons.

If you can’t work around your toddler right now, or you can’t make it to a particular event or training session, it is going to be all right. Sometimes the best way to manage your time is take things off your plate and lower your expectations. Free yourself from the guilt and remember that 2 years from now things will be totally different. And maybe along the way you will discover other options, and other dreams, that you’d never considered while you were beating yourself up because you couldn’t make it to BlogHer 2010.

Now it’s your turn. Have you written a post about time management? If so, enter the details below. And whether you have or not, go check out these other blogs and get a time-ly dose of inspiration. (Ha! I am punny.)

Dishwater Blues

My name is Amber and I hate doing dishes. Hate it, with the fire of 10,000 suns. I have ever since I was a kid. Cleaning is not my idea of a good time, in general, but I can stomach tidying toys or vacuuming or scrubbing toilets. Doing the dishes, on the other hand, leaves me feeling sullen and angry.

I think my dish hatred stems from my experience at Brownie camp as a 7-year-old. After each meal we had to wash our own dishes. They had sinks set up – one for washing, one for rinsing, one for sterilizing. There were 20 little girls lined up to wash and we weren’t all as diligent about scraping our plates as we should have been. By the time you got to the end of the line the water was awful. Dunking my plate in that water rendered it dirtier rather than cleaner. Those soap commercials that show a sparkling glass emerging from a sink that has already washed a dozen greasy pans? They lie.

Following my Brownie camp adventures I learned to fear what lies beneath the dishwater. As a single woman I only washed my dishes when I absolutely had to, and frequently found myself cleaning a single bowl so that I could eat soup. I alienated more than one roommate with my less-than-stellar kitchen cleaning. When Jon and I got married and went searching for our first shared apartment, a dishwasher was at the top of our list of requirements. I wasn’t going to lose my husband over my hatred of washing by hand.

This is a mostly staged photo of me happily rinsing a pot.

While we do have a dishwasher these days, the sad truth is it doesn’t save you from having to clean your kitchen. There’s the loading and unloading, of course. There are also items that need to be washed by hand, surfaces that have to be wiped, and kids’ spills to contend with. Thankfully, Jon usually steps up to the plate. Approximately 5 nights out of 7 he tackles the kitchen and I thank my lucky stars for him. He’s a prince among men.

Sadly for me, my prince is currently on day 15 of 18 of Olympic work. The days he’s working are long and he doesn’t get home most nights until after 10pm. I have had to do far more kitchen cleaning than I normally would. It turns out that ignoring it doesn’t make it go away, and my Samantha Stevens nose-wiggle is on the fritz. There’s nothing for it but to hold my nose and dive in. Practice is not making perfect for me, and I hate the dishes as much as ever. Luckily, though, my kids seem to like them, so maybe in a few years I can pass them off.

So, tell me – what’s the household chore you hate the most? Or are you a happy soul who can find joy in even the most mundane of tasks? Please share!

With the Touch of My Hand

It’s the middle of the night and my 18-month-old, Jacob, is awake. He is stirring and kicking and maybe even crying. If I don’t hear him right away and I’m not already in bed with him he might even pad down the hall, a bleary-eyed little man in a footie sleeper on a search for Mama.

He finds me, or I find him. Then I am there, and he is there, and in my lowest voice I say, “Shhh, shhh, you don’t have to wake up, it’s time for sleeping.” And I lay my hand on him, and he quiets. He stills. He exhales. He reaches for me and I nurse him and he falls back to sleep quickly. I follow him, my hand still on his back, and together we drift off and share our dreams.

There are other nights, too, when my 5-year-old Hannah wakes up from a nightmare. Her waking is far more rare, but much more dramatic. It has always been this way, my girl has slept well at night but has always woken crying if it’s still dark outside. On those nights, my husband often goes to her while I pull the night shift with her little brother. But not always. Sometimes I find my way to her in the night, and I lay my hand on her and she clings to me and the tension melts out of her. Mama is here, she is safe, and she can go back to sleep again.

Of course it isn’t always so idyllic or easy. I have had the nights where nothing I can do will calm the children, when teeth or stuffed noses or the phase of the moon force the whole house awake for an hour at 3:14am. I have had night terrors and bed-wettings and late night diaper disasters from newborns. I have struggled with the different personalities and needs of two children at night, and fought to balance them with my own.

But most of the time, still, I am like a talisman in the night. I am Safety and Comfort, and my mere presence means that everything is OK. It baffles me and inspires me, the way that I am not just a 30-something suburbanite who can’t figure out what she wants to do with herself. I am not just Amber, math whiz and all-around crunchy sort with a tendency to talk too much and rush to judgment. I am also Mother, the source of all things, the symbol of nurturing and abundance.

It will not always be so. My feet of clay will be all too visible to my children one day. I will be the one who mixed everything up or said the wrong thing or left them waiting for 27 minutes after band practice. But for right now my children are still small, and I am still the world to them. So I am mostly willing as I drag myself from my bed and bestow calm, with the touch of my hand.

Just a quick reminder about my Crafting my Life link-up, which is happening on February 25th. February’s Crafting my Life series is about time management. Exciting? Debatable. Important? Absolutely. To participate, write a post on this month’s theme and add yourself to the list that will appear with my regular post at 6am on the last Thursday of the month. Then go off and read everyone else’s ideas and thoughts and be inspired! Check out January’s link up to get a feel for how it works.

Toddlers Don’t Do Time Management

It’s Thursday and I’m Crafting my Life! February’s theme is time management. In the past two weeks I talked about the nature of having no time and how I’m learning to seize the moment. This week, I’m talking about working with small kids underfoot.

I have tried to do the work-at-home mom thing once before. I had a baby carrier business from 2006-2008, or thereabouts. It started because I am sort of obsessive about crafting, and I sewed myself dozens of baby carriers in pursuit of the Perfect Carrier. A few of my friends started buying carriers, and had good things to say. It all started when my first child Hannah was 1 year old, and I had visions of launching a successful business and quitting my day job. I would be able to work from home and spend more time with my kid and life would be sunshine and rainbows.

The reality of working from home was much different than how I pictured it in my head. My daughter was not remotely interested in playing happily at my feet while I worked on the computer or sewed. She was also of an age where I couldn’t bring her anywhere without risking disaster, so any visits to suppliers or my seamstress or the accountant had to be done at a time when someone else was taking care of her. In the end I couldn’t devote the time to my business that was required, and I made more money in less time working as an engineer, so that’s what I did.

Now, here I am with another 1-year-old, dreaming of working at home. In spite of my previous experience, I believe it can be done, although I understand that working around small children is not easy. They don’t understand deadlines, or why Mama really can’t let you talk to the person on the other end of the phone. So how do work-at-home parents do it? I don’t have the miracle formula, but I can tell you a few things that I’ve discovered along the way:

What about you? How do you manage to work with small kids at home? Please share your secrets, or just commiserate with me on how hard it really is.

February’s Crafting my Life series is about time management. Exciting? Debatable. Important? Absolutely. On the last Thursday of the month, which just happens to be the 25th, I will include a link up. To participate, write a post on this month’s theme and add yourself to the list. Then go off and read everyone else’s ideas and thoughts and be inspired! Check out January’s link up to get a feel for how it works.