It’s 7:55am on a Sunday morning and I’m the only one awake, what a luxury. There’s about 20 things I could think of I could be doing…various tidying house tasks, but no I’ve decided to sit here and write a blog post on my life as a full time working mum of three boys! A question I get asked all the time is how do I fit everything into my extremely packed life. So why not explain in my usual (hopefully) amusing ramblings. See if you get it, see if you think I’m coping!
So Mrs Mummypenny has quite a lot going on in her life, if you regularly read this blog you’ll have seen my profile page, I’ve worked for a few blue chip companies in my time and currently work full time for another big company. But firstly in life I have my 3 boys. Dylan, Josh and Jack are 6, 4 and 18 months old. School life is not too hectic because I currently only have one at school, Dylan is in year 1. Josh is at pre school starting reception this Sept and Jack does nothing!
By the way Jack and Dylan are now awake…8 minutes I had to write my blog…Octonauts on! No wait hubby is up, it’s fine!
So school life is not that hectic, mainly due to help I get and the fact that my children do very little after school activities, they dont really kick off until year 3ish. I have an amazing childminder who looks after the children 8 to 5:30 Tuesday to Thursday so she does the different school runs for me. On Mondays either my husband or in laws look after the children. And then Fridays I work from home.
Friday is a military planned day. I normally get up early and do some work before kids wake up, get them all ready for 8am. Do a couple of conference calls (at 8am very early I know!), then I drop off Dylan to school & the younger two to childminders. Then I’m free of children either to work from home or go out to do store visits.
On to my job; I work full time and I rarely do my 37.5hrs. I always put in more, normally in the evening after they’ve all gone to bed. But I enjoy it, really enjoy it. My mind is stimulated, my job is taxing and interesting, and I work for a great company. I’ve worked there for 4 years now and intend to stay. And the really great bit is that I earn good money, just about enough to cover the mortgage and childcare bill, which are pretty much the same as each other! My hubby works locally which works perfectly at the moment. He can cover if I’m ever stuck anywhere, but I do try my best to get home for 5:30. And when the dreaded calls from school happen, which is rare then he’s there to collect if necessary.
We choose to both work full time. I’ll never moan about it, sometimes the balance isn’t right, too much work, not enough time for my kids or husband or friends, but other times it calms down and I can regain balance. I know I have some stay at home mummy acquaintances who cannot understand why I work full time, and I feel like they judge me..I don’t tend to be friends with these women 🙂 I have plenty of other friends a mixture of stay at home mummies, part-time and full time mummies who get it, and these I do spend time with. It’s nice to contrast our different lives and understand the good and the bad of both. I hate the fact that I miss out on things my children do especially Jack, who no doubt walked first at my childminders and other milestones, but I work to ensure we have a nice house in a nice village and we can have a couple of nice holidays a year.
I couldn’t live my life without the support of many people, agreed quite a bit of it is paid for and my childcare bill is lets say over £1000 a month. But I love my childminder, as do my kids. We have the flexibility of me being able to work from home on a Friday and my hubby currently often has Mondays off work, although is is keen to only work Monday to Friday;-). And we have the in-laws who live 50 miles away in Essex, but do look after the children regularly and will take all three for the weekend or even to allow us a holiday by ourselves.
I also do plenty of other stuff 😉 I run Mrs Mummypenny, my website and facebook page that I kicked off whilst on maternity leave. I need to give a few hours a week to this, one day this will be my own business and fortune ;-).
All the boys are very much into football, and Dylan plays for the Knebworth U6 cubs, so I’m the administrator for the team. I like to go out running, go to boot camp and do insanity workouts. Oh and I love going out drinking with my friends. Sometimes locally with our families and sometime in London town drinking cocktails and getting the last train home.
Thinking about everything in my life, yes its hectic but we have everything we need. There are some things that I’m not so great at as a result of the busy life. Organisation I struggle at, remembering stuff for school. All the homework,reading, sending in money, cakes etc I’m not great at. I rarely…actually never make cakes for the school cake sales. And I’m guilty of not reading with Dylan every night. Often other mums remind me of things like French day or Nursery rhyme day or whatever the school seems to be celebrating. And I seem to rush around everywhere, everything is done at an extremely fast pace.
What’s your life like? Do you still work full time after having children?
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