I need to leave the office every day by 5:00 on the nose in order to make it home by 5:30-5:45, when Tata goes off duty. I feel a strong sense of obligation to be there on time to respect her time (and avoid having to pay extra), and to be there for Gatito. Nine hours/day without parents is enough, don’t you think? Also I want to soak up every moment of those two short hours before bed.
But it makes 5:00 such an incredibly stressful part of my weekdays. Whether I’m in a meeting, on the phone, giving direction to my team, or engaged in an IM conversation, I find myself desperately eyeing the clock, panicked about getting the hell out of the office. I end up running out without properly finishing, with a list in my head of all the things I have to do after Gatito goes to bed.
For those of you that work outside the home, what is your most stressful time of day? Do you have any coping strategies?
Hmm. I hear you on that – you have a hard stop. I typically have a quiet morning and HATE that moment when the commotion starts and I need to start engaging with people. Like now, I am waiting for my officemate to turn up in the coming hour, and frankly, life will get a whole lot worse then…
Oddly, I get used to it by about 11…
You just named it. 3:21, when my bell rings, I know I have exactly 10 minutes to get everything ready in my classroom before I HAVE to head out to get Ainsley and have enough time to make it home by 4pm, enjoy each other and have dinner, when she is usually asleep between 6-6:30. It is frantic.
It never fails me that parents or old students show up at exactly 3:30 when I have my one alotted minute to get out of there.
Monday or Wedneday mornings are awful for me. Mondays because the kids’ sheet and blankets for naptime need to be washed and ready to go (along with whatever theme-of-the-week item they need) and invariably I’m rushing around like a madwoman just getting all the stuff together.
Wednesdays we need to leave the house 15 minutes earlier than usual in order to avoid the massive traffic delays that occur b/c the local HS on our normal commute route starts the day an hour late on Wednesdays (so the teenyboppers can get some extra sleep…). I feel like I’m constantly snapping at the kids those mornings because they always seem to dawdle right when I need them to MOVE!
5-8 p.m. is a crap shoot always. I don’t have suggestions. I wish!
The best thing I ever did for myself as a parent was to move within walking distance of my office, which is, not coincidentally, where the child care center/preschool is located. It turned the dial way, way down on my stress. I go downstairs to pick up the boy, and sometimes he wants to leave right away, and sometimes he doesn’t: no problem. On the way home we talk and he insists I sing embarrassing songs: also not a problem. We wander by the water fountain and watch it for a while; sometimes we stop to buy a bagel. There’s always a little hassle coming in the front door (jackets off! shoes off! feed the cats! get the sippy cup!) but I realize that that 5-10 minutes is such a light burden that I can’t complain.
Every once in a while I have an early morning meeting and have to hustle him out before he’s really ready to leave, and that sucks. But he loves going to “mommy office! school!” and is always willing to head out early, which makes life a lot easier.
I need to find a way around that term…”work outside the home” as code for women who work and mother. Mainly, because I work inside the home, but not chiefly, as a mother. Most stressful part of my day is always the morning, when the nanny comes and I have to leave the boys. They’re getting major stranger anxiety, so they start screaming the moment that she walks in the door. YIKES.
Hmmm…I just stressed about it until I got used to it. I recently got an assistant who kind of “takes over” at the end part of my day. People who need me have learned in the time of the last 2 1/2 years that I am out the door by by 2:45-3. The sitter doesn’t expect me until 3:30-4 so that’s when I try to get any errands done (shopping, bank, etc.) sometimes I squeeze in a beauty/ massage time in there (and usually feel guilty but remind myself that it is good for me).