First Person Friday: Working and Making it Work with Four Kids

Last week I started a new weekly “feature” giving working mothers a platform to tell their stories.  I’ve written before about the invisible working mother phenomenon, and I hope this forum offers community and inspiration for those of us who feel underrepresented in traditional media.

Our second First Person Friday piece is from Sierra Rix, a senior director at Cultural Care Au Pair who has four children.  She blogs at SierraRix.Blogspot.com about motherwood, life and the bad haircuts she’s given her kids.  You can also follow her on Twitter @SierraMRix.

Working and Making it Work with Four Kids

“Today, on Mommy’s Holding it Together with Scotch (Tape), we see the Rix family doing the morning dash …”

Sometimes I feel like my life could be a sit-com of working mommy miss-haps involving cute but bouncing off the walls kids. The supporting cast would consist of our Swiss Au Pair, a Jack Russell, a sleeping cat and co-star Ed, my rare-book collecting, Seinfeld watching, semi-obsessed football fan husband.

Oh wait, there are half a dozen out there already. Darn. Guess I’ll have to keep the day job.

Fortunately, I love my “day-job.” There has to be that love to make the craziness of raising four kids 7, 5, 4 and 7 months, while working full-time not only bearable, but an enjoyable adventure. Everyday, I mesh being a mom, wife and professional into one person.

Here’s a snapshot of my reality:

The alarm, aka the baby, goes off around 6 am indicating it is time for my husband to get in the shower and her to indulge in breakfast in bed. She nurses on one side, while my once hated, now loved, pump takes care of the other. The feeding frenzy has just subsided when the three stooges pile in, effectively turning our king size bed into a playpen and guaranteeing someone will end up whining that they have “no room.” After about 15 minutes of what they call snuggling and I call Pee-Wee WWF, Nicole, our au pair is on the clock and I have the bathroom to myself and 20 minutes to pull myself and the baby together while she get the big kids dressed and to the table. My husband herds the stragglers downstairs as he zips out to work and Nicole gets breakfast started.

Nicole and I take turns running the older two to school. Let me rephrase, she walks them to school when it’s her turn, on my days, I drive like a woman crazed in the mini-van and make quick stops at the grocery store, dry cleaners or hardware store before screeching to a halt in the driveway to be back in the home office by 8:50 am. A quick nurse for the baby and I’m returning emails by 9 am.

A blur of calls, email, presentations and pumping with a brief pause when I head downstairs for a quick meal with the 4 year old and Nicole, who keep me company as I eat a quick lunch while nursing. Then I’m back at my desk! The afternoons fly as I work my way down the To-Do list, pump and close out by planning the following day.

Blissfully, the day ends more quietly than it began. A family dinner, one of us cleans up while the other starts tubs for the kids and then story time. All of us sprawled on the rug in the boys’ room: our eldest daughter holding her baby sister; the boys cuddled up in a blanket next to me while Ed reads. Bedtime is one of those “just right” moments.

Being a working mom means I do wacky things with my kids, like science experiments with water and the candles on the dinner table and roast marshmallows over the stove; all the while, balancing our schedules as carefully as our checkbook. We’ve made certain things priorities like families dinners and family time, childcare that feels like family, and living a simple life so we can enjoy the life we have. Like every other mom, working or not, I just try to do this parenting gig as well as I can.

If you are interested in telling your working mother story, email The Mama Bee at mamabeeblog at gmail dot com with the subject line “First Person Friday.”