Working From Home

I have the luxury of being able to work from home most days, as we have a wonderful studio manager at Prairie Village, and my mom, Deb, and I switch off at Leawood. I feel like it is almost every mom's dream to work from home. You don't have to have your kids in daycare every day, and athleisure is perfectly acceptable. Hell, I'm in my yoga pants drinking wine as write this. It definitely has its perks...except for when you have a long list of things you need to get done for work and your three year old has other plans.

It was on Monday, and I was excited to get my week started. I was motivated and had my whole week planned out and knew exactly how everything was going to go. [Enter Nora] My amazingly sweet and very spirited three year old, however, decided Monday she was going to do everything possible to derail Mom. Our day started out great. I was working on some flyers, she was working on her tracing skills in a workbook. I was enjoying my coffee, she was enjoying her milk. Stella, my 6 month old, was just chilling in her MamaRoo. Nora decided she wanted to play with her Legos, and that's when it went south. A minute after she dumped her bucket of Legos out, she decided she was done, and then dumped out one of her puzzles. When I told her she needed to pick up the one she wasn't playing with, she started her silent protest. It began with her just ignoring me. Not looking at me. Then looking at me, and one-by-one throwing Lego pieces across the room. I tried to explain to her it just made more of a mess for her to clean up, but who am I kidding trying to reason with a three-year-old? Since she has my stubbornness, I knew she wasn't going to budge on picking her toys up. Instead, I grabbed a trash bag and "threw away" all of her toys and if she wanted them back she had to "earn" them back.
Since she doesn't really nap anymore, she does "quiet time" in her room for about an hour, and we just hope she eventually falls asleep. Some days it's successful and others it's not. Since it was a beautiful day, I decided to work out on the front porch. About 10 minutes into quiet time, Nora comes walking around the side of the house, "Hi, Mom! I brought you these." As she comes bearing dirty dishes from the kitchen. We have a completely fenced in yard, but still terrifying that she made it outside through a different door that, clearly, I forgot to lock. She handed them off, and that's when I notice the green pen all over her legs and shirt. When I took her back to her room, I noticed green pen all over her bright white sheets as well. Great. Who knows how long she was hoarding that pen in her room for. Just waiting for the perfect moment to set Mom off. After I got her settled back in her room, and I back on my computer, the front door creaks open, and out walks Nora. In a different shirt. And no pants. As I ushered her back to her room one last time, I told her I would tell her when she could come back down, and she needed to put clothes back on. Once again, she came back down with a new ensemble...a new shirt, sweater, pink butterfly shorts, a baby doll and my nursing pillow. Which she took out into the yard...where she eventually fell asleep...at 4:30pm. In the eight hours that I tried to get work done, I probably got a total of one solid hour of work completed. I couldn't wait to send her to school the next day.

Side note: Stella was amazing the whole day. She took two naps, and just chilled in between feedings. But she got me back the next day when I took her to the studio with me and she had a major blow out. And, #momfail, I didn't have a change of clothes with me, so I had a naked baby with me the rest of the day.

In the moment, I was furious, frustrated and wondered how I would ever get any work done once Stella got to be Nora's age too. Looking back, it's funny. Nora just wanted to play, and needed my attention. Now, I schedule in playtime during my work days, because sometimes we all need to take a step back and have some three-year-old fun.