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TAKE THIS QUIZ: Do you go to the office in your fuzzy slippers and Einstein hair? When speaking on the office telephone, do you put clients on hold, telling them, "Mommy has to go potty"? Do you mute the phone during conference calls to change a diaper? Does your oven timer dictate when it's time to take a break?
If you said yes to one of these questions, you're a work-at-home mom. You've set aside the fast track to make little tracks in the sand. Your children rise up—much too early—and call you, and call you, and call you.
I'D WORKED in public relations before my husband, Jeff, and I moved to Colorado—and before my daughter, Caitlin, came along. Since my firm needed time to replace me, I was able to finish some critical projects with a computer and a phone from our spare bedroom in our Denver apartment. After learning there were practically no high-tech PR firms in Colorado, I decided to go into business for myself, subleasing my services in public relations to companies directly. When we moved into a house, the family room became my office. After Caitlin's birth, I shaved off a few clients and now put in only 15-20 hours per week. It's been a tremendous blessing to work at home and play with her on my coffee breaks. The hard part is gaining momentum after two hours of "Ga" and "Whasis?"
My ideal day starts at 5:00 a.m. My plan is to rise quickly, take some coffee to my office, and put away two hours of work before Caitlin starts calling for breakfast. My hard-working husband, Jeff, leaves for work at six. Therein lies my problem: the garage door opener. It sounds like a train coming through the floor in the baby's room and, unless Caitlin is in the middle of a lovely dream, it shatters her sleep, and my morning is lost.
Unaware of this crisis, Jeff drives to his quiet office, where he sits for more than 10 minutes at a time, talks on the phone without his hair being pulled, and eats his lunch without bending to clean peanut butter off the floor. Meanwhile, I've vacated my post at the computer to assure the baby that the garage door opener won't eat her. Then I do something really brave: I take her to the office.
There's good news and bad news. The good news is, I discover it's not necessary to spend precious family dollars on the purchase of toys. Caitlin would much rather empty the contents of my garbage can than play in her $50 bouncy thing. I keep a basket of toys on the floor to lure her away from the file drawers, but no, she'd rather empty them, too. The bad news is, I realize later she's gnawed on the article I was supposed to copy and fax to my client.
It's time for a reprieve, so we charge to the kitchen for breakfast. Caitlin goes in the highchair with some Cheerios while I make something to eat. At 10 months, she's too advanced for Cheerios, so she uses them instead for a physics experiment. She drops them one at a time over the side of her highchair, watches them fall to the floor, then declares, "Uh-Oh." I used to teach aerobics at my church, but with all the bending I do picking up Cheerios, I no longer need outside exercise.
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