Finding That Balance

Lately I have been submerging myself in work.  I'm so excited about all of the new learning I've been doing that I can feel my neurons doing the happy dance.  The world is starting to make sense to me, I'm starting to make sense to myself, my clients are starting to make sense to me, and most importantly my children are starting to make sense to me.

I feel blessed that I'm working in a position that allows that carryover to happen right here in my very own home.  It makes me ecstatic to think about all of the new things I can try with the boys and I feel refreshed when I can let go of baggage and go at a difficult situation (example: studying spelling words with Corbin) with a whole new outlook.

However, as excited as I am and as much as I  feel like I'm  going to burst at the seams with happiness over this new knowledge, I'm finding it hard to keep my energy level going all day with my clients and come home and have that same energy level for the most two important children in my life.

It's about finding that balance and I'm still searching for it right now.

I come home from work, most nights after 6:00, and I'm tired.  The kids are tired too after a full day of school (where they're being slaughtered with executive higher-learning functions when they aren't ready for it- but that's a whole other post), then they have therapy, or an after-school sport, or if they are lucky just an afternoon at the pond looking at the natural habitat and trading praying mantises for tadpoles.

Then I come home and I have to make dinner.  Then we have to do homework.  Then baths.  Then supplements.  Then bedtime.  Bedtime would be the time that I try to sneak in a little bit of reflex integration...but some nights I'm even too tired for that- because I'm thinking about the dishes I've left in the sink or the group I have to do in the morning or the fact that if I don't do laundry I might not have a clean towel after my shower in the morning.

I know this is still new for me- the working full-time bit and the not-having-another-adult-in-the-house bit- and it will take patience and shifting of our routines to feel really comfortable.

Despite the difficulties it has added to our lives and our routines I don't feel that guilt piece at all.  And that makes me know that I'm doing the right thing.   I know that everything I'm doing is making a better life for all three of us.  I know that everything I'm learning, with the purpose of learning to be a better occupational therapy practitioner, is in turn making us into a better family.  What more could you ask for in a job?

Now that I've rambled, are you a working parent?  How do you make it work for your family?