My life as a working mom

This post is by Poppins of http://babiesanon.blogspot.com

I see a few posts once in a while about working moms. People wonder how we do it all. The answer- we don't. We don't do it all, but we do all we can. We're just as busy and just as involved as a stay at home mom, only our routine looks different. Here's what mine looks like. I'm going to start from when I come back home from work - which is around 6 pm on most days.

6:00 pm: I land from work all eager to see poppin. She does a little war dance and makes all kinds of unintelligible noises
prancing around the room, refusing to let me touch her. It's worth working outside the home just to see this. 5 minutes later, I cannot bear it anymore, so I scoop her up and give her a huge kiss (or many huge kisses) everywhere and start asking her how her day was.

6:15 pm: Our welcome routine over, I listen with half a ear (I'm a bad daughter/DIL) to my mother/MIL. They are usually telling me about their day. I only perk up if they tell me something cute that poppin did, otherwise things like 'Oh the maidservant came late today' etc does not merit my full attention.

6:30 pm: I go into the kitchen and start moving pots and pans around, maybe munch some biscuits, all the time with poppin at my heels watching what I am doing and perhaps hoping for her Mummum. Then I sit down and give her mummum (dinner). She has an early dinner.

6:45 pm: Still eating her dinner, now that the edge has gone off her hunger, poppin starts squirming in her high chair. Out comes my stories of the Thatha who asked the bird to sing, the lion to roar etc. By the time I get through that story and a few of her favourite songs, dinner is done. I pull her down from the chair, wash her mouth and give her 'Akkam' (water)

7:00 pm: Start with dinner preps or help my mil with dinner preps. Poppin is usually spending time with DH at this time. He sometimes combines work with fun by placing her on his lap while they view Mickey/Elmo/barney/Dora etc on his laptop via Google images. Bad daddy :)

7:30 pm: Poppin is thinking that I am spending too much time in the kitchen, so she comes and hugs my legs or tugs at my dress all the time saying 'Mumm-any'. So I carry her, and cook singlehandedly. If MIL is at home, she comes to the rescue and shoos me away from the kitchen saying 'Go spend time with your daughter go !'. Sometimes DH comes to the rescue and takes her to the common area of our apartment where she's playing with the neighbor's kids.

8:00 pm: Dinner done, I sit down with poppin to spend some 'quality time' with her. For half hour we just play, or read. Sometimes I take her down to the lower level where there are some kids or maybe we just go for a walk. Or perhaps to practice climbing up and down the stairs. I also use this time to go to the neighborhood grocery store to pick something up. Poppin loves this me-time. DH is at the gym at this time.

8:30 pm: Time for our dinner now, and poppin loves eating a bit from our plate - adult food does taste more nice. We usually have music on (satellite radio) and we amp up the volume and watch poppin shake her booty. Who needs TV when you have live entertainment?

9:00 pm -10:30 pm: Quality time as family. DH and I let poppin play while we catch up on the day's happenings. Some story telling, some songs, some dancing, some reading. Poppin has a glass of warm milk.

10:30 pm: Time for sleepy land. Poppin goes to sleep, DH and I peep into our respective laptops and then call it a night. Some chatting at the bed before we nod off.

7:00 am : Wake up time for DH and me. I do the morning chores, boil milk, coffee decoction, make oatmeal for DH, fruits/toast for poppin and myself. DH is meanwhile getting ready to go for his long commute to office, has a hurred breakfast and leaves.

8:00 am : Poppin awakes. After some cuddling (it's lovely to cuddle a warm-from-sleep baby), we do the usual struggle of brushing her teeth with her Do-ah (Dora) toothbrush. Then it's her morning milk followed by big job in the potty.

8:30 am: We have breakfast together.

9:00 am: I get ready, go for my bath etc. When MIL is not there, I bathe with poppin. Maybe it will corrupt her to see me in the nude, but hey a girl's got to have her bath right?

9:30 am: Time to leave for office. Regretfully (Ha, who am I kidding?) I either drop her off at my mom's place or just say Bye (when MIL is here). She cheerfully waves bye. It's hard to believe but poppin has NEVER cried when I leave for office, I'm damn lucky so far.

9:30 am-5:30 pm : I'm at office, reading blogs in mini breaks, chatting with my colleagues, drinking yucky office coffee, calling a few times home. And I do some work in between:-)

Poppin meanwhile, has had her bath and food and sleeps for a good 2-2.5 hours in the afternoon. When she wakes up, and eats some snacks, she heads to the park and plays for an hour, before welcoming me home.

If I have to get nitpicky, here's a breakdown of the number of hours I spend with poppin (Not counting the night)

Time spent with me: 8:00-9:30 and 6:00-10:30. Total: 6 hours.

Time spent with her grandma (Not counting her afternoon nap): 9:30-1:00 and 3:30-6:00. Total: 6 hours.

Not bad huh? This not counting the days DH or I work from home.