The Balancing Act

NaBloPoMo's Prompt for Monday November 7: Making family time is important to me. How do you balance your children, relationship and work life? (guest post by Ricki Lake)

This is the question of my life. It's especially difficult, I think, when my work is something I absolutely love and want to do all the time. Being a writer and a creative life coach, my work is about passion: spending time with my own creative Self, helping others remember and release theirs, and connecting with people who are passionate about passions too. It's hard not to want to be immersed in that all the time. But spending time with my children and husband is more than just about squelching the guilt of neglecting them while I happily buzz about my business. My children and my husband give me a lot to write about! They inspire me to work hard and take care of myself so that I am a healthy role model for my children. Working on my patience is a separate post entirely.

I enjoy my husband's company; we started off our marriage as dreamers and we continue to do this together and support each other in seeing these dreams come true. Maintaining the balance is important. That being established, how does it happen in my house?

Well, the self care has become surprisingly easier these past few months. I committed to yoga classes at a local studio and, because I bought the monthly pass which is only worth it if I take at least two classes a week...I end up at the studio twice a week! My husband and I compare schedules every Sunday night (he sometimes has to see clients in the evenings during the week) and I select my yoga classes based on the nights he's home. It took some getting used to for me to leave him to put two sometimes cranky children to bed alone, but once I mentally got over that it became pretty easy - sometimes all you can see is a cloud of dust from where I take off running out the door! Taking care of myself and doing the things I enjoy doing on my own also got a lot easier after my husband started doing the same. Neither one of us feels like we're getting the shorter end of the stick because, for the most part, we each get a similar amount of time for our own enjoyment.

Since this past summer especially, we have taken people up on their offer to babysit and have spent more time alone together than we have in awhile. We also reserve at least one week night per week, if not more, to hang out after the kids go to bed.

My work time is a lot more limited than I'd like but this is because I have chosen not to put my son in daycare and my daughter is in preschool only in the mornings. Sometimes I am not sure why I decided this! But most of the time I know it's because they'll "only be this young once" and that one day they will both be in school full time (September 2015 to be exact). So I take advantage of the fact that my son sleeps in and I work from the time my daughter gets picked up for school (8:30am) till I have to wake my son to get ready for our end of the carpooling bargain, about 10:30am. I take 15 minutes of that time to shower and dress. I'd rather take a quick shower and work longer. Hey, at least I'm getting my showers in! I also have about 7 hours per week of babysitter and grandparent time (total). Needless to say, I have to take a little bit of time on weekday evenings and weekends to do a few things that don't end up getting done during the week. Especially because my work time includes: writing and all that goes with the business, being a speech therapist, and a lot of the house-hold related business. Except for the finances...thankfully I married a financial planner who actually is quite passionate about his work!

So would I say my life is properly balanced? In the overall picture, yes. Is there anything I wish I could do more of and anything I wish I could do less of? Yes - my problem is not finding ways to add family time to the week; it's finding ways to add work time. But then, I think that's kind of a good problem to have.