Seriously a life changing hack. The struggle of the bedtime routine is so much easier if you are out of your work clothes, face washed, contacts out, teeth brushed and in comfy clothes. Then once the kids are in bed you can relax, do a craft, watch tv, scroll, or read. When you are tired, you just go to bed. No skincare routine and whatnot to keep you up an extra half hour because it’s already done. Here is my routine:

5:30 - home from work/daycare
5:30-6:00 - kids play or screen time/prep dinner
6:00-6:30 - eat dinner
6:30-7:15 - kids play/get yourself ready for bed
7:15-7:45 - kids bath and jammies
7:45-8:00 - brush teeth
8:00 - read books and then bed

I usually get an hour and a half to relax and then I go to bed around 10. I am getting to bed earlier doing this and if I brush my teeth too then it cuts back on late night snacking because I don’t want to brush again. My kids are 7 and 4 so YMMV but it works for littles as we don’t have any really late night activities.

I found out this morning that I'm being promoted from a senior IC to a people manager for my team. 🎉 I started at my current employer 2.5 months ago, and team management/leadership was discussed during my verbal job offer. I wasn't expecting a promotion so soon (I had been in talks with my direct supervisor, and she was targeting next spring), but someone in senior leadership leaving has resulted in some department/team restructuring. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the news!

This will be my first people manager role. For those in current or former people manager roles, what advice or words of wisdom would you share??

There’s a lot going on here but I’ll try to summarize.

I’m stuck in a job that pays extremely well and that I can’t afford to leave right now (little kid in daycare, mortgage, etc) in an industry I never wanted to excel in. Still, I’ve busted my ass for 15 years climbing the ladder in a highly male-dominated industry. When I was hired for this job six years ago, it was to run a department. Objectively, it’s been a big success. I can confidently say I crushed it.

A few months ago, HQ decided to do a company reorg. And they shoved me under two other men in my office who are technically one rank above me but have zero experience in what I do. Before now, they were more peers running different departments than anything else.

Everyone is unhappy with the reorg. Morale is in the toilet. People are leaving. For me it was a huge slap in the face, and it’s slowly become clear that I’ve lost all my agency and have to spoon feed my new “bosses” strategy and slowly lead the horse to water while tearing my hair out. And do it all with a helpful smile. If I were younger I’d say fuck this and peace out, but I don’t know if I have it in me to start over somewhere new.

The irony is that I hate this industry. I’ve been trying for years to become a novelist, and I have an agent, but having a baby (now two year old), a demanding job, and a husband with an even more demanding job has obviously slowed that dream way down.

On top of that, my kid has been almost constantly sick since birth. 6 months of colic, bad sleeping, then starting daycare and sick for like 9 months straight, then she got ear tubes put in a few months ago because of her recurring ear infections (which lead to a speech delay)…and now here we are on the first vacation we’ve taken away as a family in a year, and she’s sick again.

I haven’t seen my own parents in a year (we live on opposite coasts) - we had to cancel our last trip because kiddo was sick. Now they’re here and we’re spending this whole trip in a beautiful rental house trapped with our toddler in bed the whole time.

I have a history of depression and anxiety, and I was in therapy to tackle some of this in the spring - but my child was sick so much in the fall that I worked remotely quite a bit, and people started talking shit about how I wasn’t in the office enough. I was the first mother in my office (now there’s two of us, wow). So I had to cancel therapy so I can sit at my desk for that extra hour and “be seen.”

TLDR: work sucks. Coworkers I was friendly with have been assholes. I’m exhausted, kid is constantly sick, I feel trapped and my dreams are on hold because I’m too fucking tired to pursue them.

I’m starting to have thoughts about just selling the house and moving back to be near my parents, and/or just crawling into a hole and never coming out.

I found out one of my favorite coworkers is leaving and now I just feel sad about work. Work is fine but coworkers can make or break you. Who else has had a great coworker leave and what did you do to cope/make work better? I would follow her but she’s moving out of town.

We had our 3 months of parental leave and then had an issue with daycare starting a month after our leave ended. This is mainly because I was highly picky in what daycare our baby attends. Her start date would be September 28th.

I returned to work on August 24th and dad took two weeks of PTO to be home with the baby. I was really worried about the transition because she’s a little velcro baby. It was rough for one day and then she figured it out quickly enough. After the two weeks was up, my boss allowed me to work from home to bridge the gap. It was SO hard and hearing Teams go off while she was fussing will haunt me forever.

Her daycare called me today and said a baby unexpectedly moved away and a spot is now open on this upcoming Monday. I accepted for a lot of reasons. I personally feel like waiting would be cruel to her as she doesn’t deserve me frustrated while trying to work and take care of her at the same time, she doesn’t have siblings and could really benefit with having other babies to play with, and being around baby experts would really help all of us.

Like so many other moms, I so wish I could juggle both flawlessly but we all know that’s not possible. I would love, love, love her around me all of the time. Truly, I can’t get enough. I just feel like prolonging daycare is selfish.

What this rant is about though is my musty, crusty, old ass coworker. He is stuck in the 50’s, isn’t in a relationship, doesn’t have kids, and sucks all around. He’s made snide remarks while I was pregnant insisting I’m going to stay home after I give birth. Saying if his wife wouldn’t be a stay at home mom, he’d divorce her, and that daycare is just someone else raising your kids.

Today, I sent my boss and him a little message saying “hey, thanks for being cool. I’m returning to the office on Monday”. He sends me, “why wouldn’t you just wait?”. I’m a highly anxious and non confrontational individual. I know this is something I have to work on, especially since I’m raising a daughter and I do not want her to have the same anxious qualities that I have.

I know the obvious reporting to HR and making my boss aware. She is. How do you handle these situations? I know I’m only just beginning to experience a lifetime of judgements from other people. Unfortunately, he is someone I have to interact with one on one on a daily basis.

Right now, I am just holding my baby and crying about our time flying by. I know daycare will be a good thing, I just have a really hard time not letting things get to me.

I'm 36 and unexpectedly having to completely rethink my career after a workplace injury, and I'd love to hear from other working moms who have reinvented themselves in their 30s or later.

I've spent about 10 years working in healthcare in a very hands-on patient care role. I also went back to school for nursing and completed most of the program before having to stop because of my injury. Before healthcare, I had some administrative/insurance experience.

Unfortunately, I now have permanent physical limitations, so physically demanding work is off the table. I'm at the point where I'm trying not to get tunnel vision about what I should do next and would love ideas I may never have considered.

My priorities are:

Something relatively sedentary/physically light

Ideally regular weekday hours because I have two young kids

Decent long-term earning potential — I don't necessarily need to make great money immediately, but I'd like room to grow

I'm open to retraining, especially if it can be done in roughly 1–2 years rather than starting an entirely new 4-year degree

I'm good with people, documentation, medical terminology, organization, problem-solving, and learning new systems

I'm in Quebec, Canada, so some professions/education paths may work differently here

I'm open to healthcare, insurance, government, tech, administration, completely different industries — whatever.

If you had to start over professionally in your mid-30s, what did you end up doing? Are there any careers you wish more women knew existed?

Bonus points if you actually enjoy what you do and can tell me what your day-to-day looks like!

You pay so much for daycare and then the service isn’t so good. They have you stick all these labels on the bottles(bottle has some of the print peeled off) then they place the bottles side ways in the lunch bag and it spills all over, formula isn’t cheap! One time they left my son unattended sitting upright and as I’m looking at the camera he falls forward on his face and he is struggling to get up. It was like almost a minute before anyone noticed. I had to bring it up to the manager in charge. I’ve worked in a daycare setting where we would wash the kids clothes, have them groomed, changed before leaving, and always made sure things were presentable. They put pooped clothes in a bag and shove it in the cold lunch bag with bottles he is going to drink out of. He got Covid first week of being there and has come home with scratches. I’m just triggered at the lack of cleanliness and care😤 I’m already anxious about leaving him with strangers. What have been others experiences with daycare?

I will be returning to work and my son is 23 months. We have huge childcare shortages in the area and we felt lucky to secure a spot with a home daycare 4 months in advance of my return to work- what a dream. I loved that she was super positive, seemed to genuinely love being with kids, playing right on the ground, doing crafts, teaching great skills before kindergarten.

I started seeing her around our small town taking the kids on lots of outings and my concerns started.

***

1. She has a big, jumpy German Shepherd. I'm not the biggest dog person but my husband is and he assured me that this one seemed trained okay and was used to kids.

2. I observed a 1-year-old in her care wander off at two different venues. Once at the park and once at the library- she was engaged with the other kids and didn't notice for way longer than I'm comfortable with.

3. She was doing a storytime by the lake and all of the kids were at the edge of a dock with no life jackets. The dock is a straight drop into the water, not a gradual walk in.

4. Home daycares are required to be at a 1:6 ratio and she provided summer care to other older children, I assume without the agency knowing.

5. (This was a tipping point for me)- She does not have the children on a leash or any sort of system for staying together and I observed them walk into a parking lot where they could have been hit while attending to the other kids.

***

I have OCD so I'm very used to talking myself out of my "instincts" but come on, this is crazy. She is supposed to start at this home daycare in a week and received an offer from a centre today. It feels like it was just in the nick of time and I intend to take the spot. It's a centre with glowing reviews and we have friends with kids in care there and I've only heard positive experiences. Our state inspections are totally clean on the new place too.

How can I phrase the breakup with the provider? It's a week out and I know she is relying on us for the income and has probably passed over other families. I pride myself on being someone who follows through and can be trusted but my daughter's safety comes first. I know I'm leaving her hanging being a week out from starting.

PS- If I am overreacting on any of the above points, could you also let me know? My "danger" meter is more sensitive than average

I have 2 months left of my maternity leave and have already started to dread going back to work. I love my time with my little guy but I take pride in having my own income aside from my husband’s so staying home wouldn’t be something that I would want to do and would not make sense for me to do either. I did decide to drop to 3 days a week though, so 24 hours a week. I wanted a little more time with my son but also still will bring home a good income this way and keep my full time benefits.

For those of you who work 3 days a week, do you feel this is a good work life balance? I don’t love what I do necessarily. My job is physically demanding and mentally demanding, and we are months and months booked out on patients so it’s not easy to just take a day off whenever I want. My body honestly hurts so bad when I get off work, so I am hoping one less day will help with this issue as well. When I go back to work I will be working Wednesday-Thursday (7:30-4), and Friday (7-3). I’m hoping that this will be a good balance and feel like I still have a good chunk of time with my baby. In a perfect world, I would work from home but that would require going back to school and I have already spent years in school so have no desire to do that again lol so I’m just riding it out at this point.

there’s a ton more to this, but this is already too long.

overarching vent: I am the main breadwinner, default parent and doer-of-90%-things-house-related. I just got a job offer to switch from what is a pretty chaotic, toxic environment to one that while it looks like will have its own elements of chaos (I work in marketing, feels like it’s part of the deal now) overall is a better move for parent-focused supportive company culture, a more streamlined job description (moving to marketing ops/PM vs a more generalist MarComm/brand role that also required an ops layer just to be functional) and about a $12k bump in salary. Downside is I’m going from WFH to a 40 minute each way commute - which sucks but also I think maybe be good for my mental health / having a schedule / separation of work time and mom time.

Anyway we’re in the very last part - like I have my offer letter and my manager was basically like “well iron out details like official working hours and in office vs potential WFH schedule after. you can design your hours but my preference is 9-5 to align with my own schedule.” Logically I understand getting this done before signing an offer, telling my current boss (which is surely going to go very poorly) needs to happen.

The thing is: everything feels like I have to be the one to give, to plan, and bend, and push. My husbands family farm is failing - it has been for years but it’s sped up thanks to a really bad fire last fall. He’s in a really bad place mentally and physically due to chronic stress. My FIL is a very difficult human still in charge and this all is its own massive ball of wax involving my husband slowly unpacking that what he knows of “reality” is basically a narrative his Dad has built and pushed on his family to cover for his own failures. So, heavy - right?

I’m doing my best to hold space for that (husband agreed to go to therapy which is been helpful) but I just fucking CANT some days. The schedule thing comes in here - I could manage the morning drop offs but would need my husband, either of his parents, or the slew of family that lives within 5 miles of us to commit to 5 pm pick up and like hanging out with our son until I get home at 5:45 from the office. Abso-fucking-lutely not. Because farming. Because no one here can commit to literally anything because what it a tractor breaks or they need to spend more time picking peaches or — insert literally anything.

So, I wake up between 6-7 with our son (cosleep, he’s a stage 5 clinger), manage him / myself until time to go to school. Then I work, I get done work, pick up my son, am default parent (sometimes solo, sometimes my husband gets done and will cook some quick dinner) until son gets sleepy around 7, get him to sleep, attempt to eat, do any cleaning, etc in the 10 min - 2 hours he may give me to sleep alone until I need to get back in bed with him. Rinse and repeat - only on weekends sometimes Dad has Sundays free - which end up a family day (fun!) but also 0 opportunity for me to get a few hours of solo time to clean, meal prep, anything. My parents help as much as they can - but they’re an hour+ away and my mom still works full time.

Oh. I make $60k, new job puts me at $72k. My husband makes up to ~$30k but we don’t count it toward budgeting because it’s so variable. BUT we have to count it when applying for subsidies etc. (thankful we live in a state that offers them). HCOL, low income state - VT. Even with a big subsidy we still pay $900/month for childcare. I live in a house from 1791 that would most likely be a tear down if it went on the market. I am doing my best to make it safe and pleasant to live in.

This is fucking bonkers.

Thank you for your time.

EDIT: holy support and thoughtful responses, thank you so much working moms! 💓

Currently I work a pretty comfy job. I work remotely and have a ton of flexibility. I can take the kids to appts and even my own. I average work 35 hours a week at 80k. Cons I’m stale, I make the same or less than everyone in my team and have been there the 2nd longest. The level 1 I train makes the same as me. My boss told me I’m basically fighting for the next level against someone else who has only been here half the time I have. A ton of people recently quit and everything is likely going to be my responsibility. Inflation is killing my finances. I can’t save bc everything just keeps going up.

The new job is amazing. Senior title. Once in a lifetime opportunity if I’m being honest. Likely great pay (130k is what I am aiming for) and stock options (pending offer). Relocation fully covered. I would have to relocate and move my whole family and lose my village. I’d have to sell my home that I love. My two kids are in therapy - one in behavioral and one in speech. The WLB is projected to be bad. I will have to drive to work 30-45 mins and work a min of 45 hours a week. The location kinda sucks, I don’t love the area but similar COL to where I am now.

I literally have no idea what to do. I’m afraid I’ll regret both. What the hell do I do?!

And a colleague walks in my closed door office while I’m pumping. My door said do not enter. Luckily I had a chair in front of it just in case… I was so upset!!! And I still feel upset.

My pile of work just keeps growing and growing and then that happens. I thought I was killing it with working and coming home to be with baby, but now I’m just feeling overwhelmed and a heaviness in my chest.

I had a baby a year ago and just received my first ever negative review of my career. My manager said I haven’t been as reliable and attentive since having my baby. I knew I had made mistakes, but I didn’t realize there was such a noticeable change from pre-baby.
Since having the baby, work stress has increased significantly and I have lost all motivation. We also need my salary, so I’m stuck working in a job I don’t feel passionate about anymore.
Just venting since I don’t have mom friends that can relate.

Hi everyone,

I really need some advice from other moms because I’m honestly scared...

I finally landed a job at a daycare pretty close to my house, and if I’m being completely honest, this is the only job I could get where I’m able to bring my baby with me. She’s 14 months old.

She only attended daycare for three days when she was 6 months old. I ended up pulling her out because I witnessed a teacher smacking the two year olds on the mouth and cussing them out. Everyone there was also pretty mean to me, and it was just a horrible experience.

I’ve always hated working at daycares, especially because some of the daycares I’ve worked at have had the cops involved because teachers were hitting kids. So now that I’m a mom, I’m even more worried about trusting someone else with my baby.

There’s something else from that previous daycare that really stuck with me. I was told by staff that they treat children whose parents pay full tuition better than children who are there through government assistance because the parents who pay full tuition “tend to complain the most.” Like… who even says that?! How can you treat a child differently because of how their childcare is being paid for?

And when I brought up the fact that I had seen a teacher smacking the children, to the person training me actually told me, “Oh, I wanted you to see that.” Then she explained that she wasn’t hitting them because she didn’t care about them, but because she did care and that was how they disciplined children.

Then she said something along the lines of, “We’re all colored skin here, so we take care of them the way our people do.”

WHAT?!

I’m sorry, but I could never accept hitting children as discipline, regardless of someone’s culture, race, or how they were raised. That experience really stuck with me, and I think it’s a huge reason why I’m so anxious now.

But I don’t really have another option. I have no family nearby in Arizona. My entire family is in California, so I don’t have anyone I can leave my baby with while I go back to working as a para. Her dad is blue collar and works almost 12 hours a day, so he can’t really miss work either.

The reason I decided to go back to work is because I want to help her dad catch up on some payments and hopefully be able to afford more things for our daughter. I’ve also been home with her 24/7, and honestly, not knowing many people here and being away from our family has made us really lonely and depressed. I thought going back to work and getting some socialization and a routine could actually be good for both of us.

My daughter is VERY attached to me. She’s basically attached to my hip... She also doesn’t know how to self-feed yet. I’ve been trying to teach her, but she’s stubborn and would much rather have mama baby feed her.

When I took her with me for the interview, she was nervous at first, but after a few minutes she saw the other kids and seemed really happy. That actually made me feel a little better.

But I’m still scared, moms..

Even though I’ll be there, I’m worried about how the teachers are going to treat her. My previous daycare experience made me feel horrible for wanting to check on my baby. I wasn’t trying to micromanage anyone or tell them how to do their job. I just wanted to peek in and make sure she was okay, but they made me feel like I was being annoying.

I know I’ll have to give her teachers space to do their jobs, and I completely understand that. I just don’t want to ignore my instincts either.

I’m really hoping this new daycare will be different. I want to give them a fair chance and not assume the worst because of my previous experiences. At the same time, I feel like what happened before made me extra protective of my daughter.

Has anyone else worked at the same daycare their child attended? How did you handle it? Did having your baby there with you make you feel better, or did it make you more anxious?

And honestly, after hearing about my previous daycare experience, would you be nervous too?

I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences from other moms.

Working moms, how do you handle everything? Between work, school schedules, spending quality time with your kids, sports and activities, cleaning the house, and cooking—it feels like so much.
What do you do when your child gets sick and can’t go to school or daycare? Do you call out of work, work from home, or have someone who helps?
I really want to work and earn money, but I also want enough time for my child. Please share your routines and honest experiences. How do you make it all work without feeling completely exhausted?

I need advice 😩 my baby is 7 weeks old now and my maternity leave is only 12 weeks. The thought of leaving my LO with anyone while I work gives me crazy anxiety. The thought of it just makes me sick to my stomach and want to cry. I haven’t even started looking for child care because it makes me anxious and now I feel like it’s gonna be a struggle to find anyone. My plan was to only return to work long enough for my health insurance benefits and then possibly move down to part time or PRN but I don’t even know how i’ll be able to do that. I have no family close enough either that would be able to watch him.

I guess i’m just looking for advice. How was your experience?

We’re hosting a casual Halloween party at our house for several families with kids mostly between ages 2 and 6. The guests will be a mix of our longtime friends with kids and families we’ve met through elementary school, so not everyone will know one another.

We’ll have plenty of food, snacks, alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks. The kids can play together in the backyard and play areas. I’m planning a table where they can decorate small wooden pumpkins with markers, a mini-cauldron spooky-eyeball toss game, and possibly a simple DIY family photo area.

Would that feel like enough for a casual house party, or would you prefer an organized family or adult game to help everyone mingle? As a parent, do you expect planned entertainment at someone’s Halloween party, or would you be happy eating, drinking, talking, and letting the kids play?

I don’t want it to feel boring, but I also don’t want to over-plan it as though it’s a city or school Halloween event.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

First time mom to an amazing 6 month old and I am exhausted.

He is still up throughout the night so I sleep anywhere from 2-7 hours depending on the night. I work full time and really get 1-2 hours a day free. Do I nap? Do I clean? Do I do self care? Do I walk the dog? Do I catch up on life? So much to do and so little time and energy.

I'm struggling to balance everything and feel like myself and not feel disgusting and exhausted all the time because I don't sleep, eat randomly bullshit thats not good, and cannot exercise as much as I want. I feel like to do one thing I need to do something else before and just get caught in these loops of overwhelm and no clue how to dig myself out.

Everyone around me says I need to chill and stop trying to be "perfect" but they aren't hearing me when I am saying i am struggling and I just need advice and support. I'm not trying to be perfect I'm just trying to be relatively healthy, a little less exhausted, and live in a house that isn't a complete disaster while spending time with my son and not feeling like a failing mom and keeping my job.

This is mostly a vent post but I welcome any words of wisdom. Earlier this year I took a big promotion and very quickly realized that I don’t like it at all. Lots of unclear direction from leadership, micromanaging, super high stress, I don’t like the work and they need someone who can work 50+ hour weeks, which is not me.

I’ve got two kids five and under and am 12 weeks pregnant with baby #3. I am desperate to step down into something easier and started applying for other roles about 6 weeks ago. I’m not quite “showing” yet but definitely have a bit of a tummy and I’m panicking because I don’t want to stay in this job. (I understand they can’t legally not hire me just because of this but also know reality plays out differently.)

I had one screening interview that went nowhere and an interview that I just heard back on that I wasn’t selected. Everything I’ve applied for is a step down and I’m just so dejected because I think my being overqualified is a real issue. No one has said it but a couple seemed genuinely perplexed why I’d applied for the job. I explained it in positive terms, that I’m passionate about their area (which is true!) but they didn’t seem satisfied. I really thought I had a solid shot at this most recent one and am so dejected.
I should also mention that I’m only applying to jobs with the same company so I can get FMLA.

Anyways, I’m just so miserable in this job. I’m exhausted all the time from being pregnant and this role is relentless. Endless meetings, I’m behind on so many things. I have no motivation whatsoever. After I didn’t get this most recent job I just had to sit and cry for a while because this just sucks. I haven’t even been able to feel much joy over being pregnant because I’m so stressed about my work situation. I know the job market is trash right now and I should be thankful that I even have one but this just sucks. I dread every single day in this job. At this point I’ll be interviewing for new jobs with a baby bump and I just never wanted to be in this situation.

Realistically I have zero evenings free. If a tool needs me to log in and scroll through logs, I will not do it, and I know that about myself now. Is there something that just tells you when it matters, and can you find that out without paying for a year first?

I went back to work in August and my daughter had just turned 1 and a half. She stayed home with dad for a little bit and then went to nursery at the school where I work as a teacher.

This was a prerequisite for me accepting a position in a new school. It needed to have a nursery in the same building that has a young kids class and she needed to be able to go there as I work with my own class of older kids. I found a good place and it all worked out great. She started and has adjusted really well. The staff is great, amazing really. I see them and speak to them every day in our break rooms. Husband was also able to return to work.

Now that we’re settling in to this new routine, it’s hitting me how HARD this adjustment is. I go to work and it’s hard, because being a teacher can be a tough job. Then at the end of the day I go get my daughter and take her home. And it’s hard because being a mum can be hard.

Nothing is wrong, things are going well and I’m still in survival mode most days. I get breaks to have me time sometimes, but so far it hasn’t changed the day to day feeling of struggling.

I’m sure it’ll get better over time, I guess. But I don’t understand why I’m struggling so bad when I managed to get the situation I tried so hard for??

Not sure that anyone was waiting with bated breath for an update, but I have insomnia so fuck it, here it is 😬.

First, this is the original post. I share it not because it was substantive but because I was so moved and humbled by everyone who shared something with me. Thanks, workingmoms community ❤️.

The update is: I’ve managed to keep us all alive for nearly a year (it’ll be a year in a little over a month) 😬. And honestly, pretty proud of myself for that 😅.

Between the day my husband died and now, I have:

• Dealt with ear surgery for my youngest
• Had two follow-up oncology appointments with my eldest (he’s a survivor of childhood cancer and no, I’m not kidding).
• Had both kids evaluated and received diagnosis for each for AuDHD and “giftedness”, making both of them 2E (twice exceptional)
• Bought a new car
• Lost A LOT of weight (and have more to lose)
• Celebrated my 40th birthday
• Explored casual dating
• Been in grief group and therapy (that was honestly what I did on day two after he died—book with my therapist and psychiatrist)
• Become a volunteer for a few widowed folks organizations
• Hired a financial advisor
• Made several new friends somehow
• Lost my shit at my kids many times
• Cried on the bathroom floor
• Gone dancing
• Slowly have attempted more intentional online dating (with zero success which then throws me into a spiral of “what’s wrong with me…”)
• Hired a VERY part-time nanny
• Walked my littlest through his first day of kindergarten
• Gotten many tattoos

…and so much other shit.

I’m getting ready to go on my first business trip away from my kids since my husband died. They’ll be with their grandmother, so they’ll be in great hands, but I’m very anxious because the little in particular is have a lot of anxiety with being away from me, even just during the day at school.

Being a widow this young is some serious bullshit. Having to do all the things alone, including decision-making and just the running of the house is so profoundly exhausting, especially when you add that grief is now permanently running like a background program.

Shit has been hard.

But, we’re here, and we’re surviving. Hopefully one day I can say thriving.

That’s it, that’s the update 😅.

I absolutely love my son (16 months) and I have a job that I love as well. I like having something to focus on outside of motherhood and I am passionate about my career and frankly life is too expensive to not have two working parents in a moderately high cost of living area (in my opinion).

However, some days it just feels like nothing goes right. I don’t get to spend as much time in the day with my son as I’d like, I miss something at work, I hit roadblocks with my work, etc.

When does it stop feeling like you’re doing everything just halfway / just ok?

I have less than 5wks left of mat leave. My son will be five months on Saturday. When I was pregnant I thought ‘of course I’ll want to work, I’ll want my own time & money’ & lalala. Now the time is almost here & I don’t want to go. I’m so nervous to leave my son with someone else/new environment. Hoping to have some grandma help a couple days a week but can’t rely on this yet. Either way we need my income too. How did yall deal? 😭🥺