I recently decided to modify my work schedule to arrive in the office at 6:00 a.m. and leave around 3:00 p.m. Bearing in mind that even in the absence of traffic my commute is close to an hour each way, this will entail getting up sometime between 4:30 and 4:45 a.m. (depending on whether I choose to actually do my hair). By extension, I will have to go to bed by 9:00 or so every night.
I’m not really a morning person and never have been. I had a couple of 7:00 a.m. classes in college that almost killed me, including a racquetball class that I literally fumbled my way through, often ending up bruised and battered by my next class. Early morning Book of Mormon was a less memorable experience since I was only semi-conscious for a lot of it.
So why did I dream up this arrangement? Well, primarily because I realized recently that the weekday time I spend with the piggies is either 1) immediately after they have woken up and I am hustling to get their diapers changed and herd them over to Grandma’s house or 2) in the hour or two right before bed, when they have long since used up their reserves of charm and instead use the crudest means (crying and whining) to communicate their need to be fed and snuggled. Both of those times are windows of high stress for me, either because I am in a rush to leave for work or I have had a long day at the office, culminating in fighting traffic, and am clinging to the shredded end of my own rope.
On my current schedule, my evening routine consists of having dinner almost immediately after arriving home, then putting the kids right to bed and puttering around the house until my own bedtime. I often haven’t been able to go anywhere because Jared has had night classes or Young Men’s commitments several evenings a week during the past year. I hope the new schedule enables me to spend a few more waking hours with my little piggies and maybe even run some weekday errands with them in tow. If it comes at the price of my own sleep deprivation, well, what else is new? Heaven only knows the last few years have given me plenty of training. Wish me luck.
3 comments:
I know it sounds trite, but you're doing everything you can to be the best mother you can be, and I'm sure Heavenly Father will bless you for it! (I have to keep telling myself that, because the likelihood of me not having to work when we have children is slim to none. Gulp...)
You will make a wonderful AM mom...I am a fan of the early morning routine...it takes a while to get used to it...but you will feel a 100x's better in the long run.
I bet it will be WAY better this way! Ammon did the same thing with his old job and we (the rest of us) LOVED having him around more. And it got me to go to sleep earlier which was good for me too! Good luck!
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