Are you always going to work late because your child is sick?

Like so many other moms, I found out how quickly your career plans can change when something goes wrong with one of your children. I would love to say that all my children are healthy and learning at the appropriate age level and able to go to daycare like most kids so that I can stay working full time, but that is not my life. I would love to share my story and hopefully you will learn something from it. If you have children with asthma, allergies, eczema, or special needs, grab a cup of coffee and read my story below:

I was working in a full-time management position 50 hours a week and my husband was a school teacher with a pretty consistent schedule. We worked opposite schedules and never saw one another, so that we would limit my new daughters daycare time to 20 hours a week. Instead of her having a runny nose most of the time like the other children, she would get it in her chest and would develop bronchitis about twice a month. Of course I was sick all the time and late for work as well as I was run down and taking care of her while she was sick. No longer was I next in line for a promotion - I quickly became a burden. After about 3 months of this, the doctors sent home a nebulizer for albuteral and steroid treatments. They said that if I could keep her out of daycare until preK she could outgrow this. You cannot imagine how guilty I felt for putting her into daycare at 10 weeks old and I knew that my career was going to drastically change.

Six years later, we live closer to family and I have two little boys at home with me in diapers - three children now. My daughter is starting first grade and has been completely healthy for 4 years. i was planning on returning to work about a year and a half ago, when something else happened. My 2 1/2 year old was not talking, was having horrible tantrums and constant earraches. My life turned upside down again and we began spending half of our day driving across town to speech therapy and OT therapy and research studies. I could not find a salaried position that would work with his schedule. It turns out that he has a speech disorder and some sensory issues and now my number one job is to try to get him caught up. Now you can imagine by now our savings was gone and credit card bills were piling up.

I tried many work at home jobs and got taken. Surveys, mystery shopping - paid about $5-10 and I need $2000 a month! Then luckily I found Work at Home United in a local parenting magazine. I saw an online presentation and fell in love with the information. I am able to work on my computer and cellphone whenever I have time in my day and am slowly building a business to last a lifetime. We are finally able to pay our bills and pay off some debt and I see such potential with what I am doing.

Please do not wait to long too realize that there are wonderful opportunities out their to work at home if you are willing to jump right in and make it a priority in your day and if you do not fall for the "make $500 a day typing something into the computer" scams. People say that they are looking for something where do not have to talk to anyone or have anything to do with products. I think that these people are kidding themselves and wasting their time and making themselves so vulnerable to loosing a lot of money.

Are you feeling overwhelmed this week?

I do not know about you but the 3 days leading up to school starting is the most stressful time of the year for me. Even more so than Christmas. My husband is a school teacher and goes back to the classroom at the beginning of the week and my daughter does not go back to school until Thursday. I also have two little boys at home with me in diapers and this means that there will be three days of everyone fighting. You see they are used to both parents being at home and are getting pretty tired of each other after being together all summer. My daughter is fighting for all of my attention since she knows that she will be going back to school and her little brothers will be with me all the time -she will stop at nothing to get attention... Plus there is so much to do to get ready for school to start.
I was pretty stressed out this morning when I first got up.. So I decided to make myself a decent breakfast, grab a second cup of coffee and a snack for the kids, and play some baby einstein videos. That way I could make a long to do list. This was a list for the rest of the week, not just for today. I prioritized what I needed to do today (school supplies, shoes, grocery) and what could be done over the course of the next few days. I feel like I am being pulled in so many different directions - I own a business working from home and need time to work, we are working with a financial planner to get more insurance and a will so there is a whole to do list from them, my daughter's cross country has already started, I want to put things in a fall consignment sale which just happens to be this week!, and then there is the school uniform and supply list..

I decided that my son's speech therapists had the right idea today - they rescheduled everyone and took the day off to spend with their children who are going back to school tomorrow. So, I spent the afternoon playing with the kids, especially my daughter. It made me think about how grateful I am to have the option to do this. Most moms have no control over their schedules, so I am glad that I made the choice to work at home.

I am sure that most of the other parents I work with are feeling overwhelmed too and are glad that I did not call. Hopefully they gave themselves the afternoon off too.

I hope that all of you other moms get through the week OK and can find a way to relax a little. To do lists, lots of coffee, and laughing with my kids always works for me.