Theresa Grisanti is a WAHM with three-year-old twins. She works to balance home life and work while trying to create an environment for her kids to thrive in. She blogs about creating a green environment in your home and learning to understand how important our natural environment is to our well-being. Check out It’s a Mom’s World for more great information about sustainable, healthy living.
We knew even before the doctors that we were having twins. As soon as I had confirmation I was pregnant, I knew there were two little beings growing inside me. Their conception was a long time in coming. We had traveled a long rode to bring those beautiful babies into our life. I knew I wanted to stay home with them. The reality paled in comparison to my lofty visions of mommy-baby bonding. Three years into it life is starting to settle into a regular routine.
A typical day in my life starts waking up sandwiched between my girl-boy twins who come to sleep with me during the night. Some days the pile is lighter than others. We rise and move downstairs to nourish our bodies after our evening fast. Get dressed and then I give myself one and a half hours to clean anything in my path. This is so important for me because the cleaning is never-ending. If I had to face the task of cleaning all day nothing would get done.
Once my time is up we prepare for an outing of some type. Our favorite places to go are the library or the YMCA. The kids love both and we make multiple visits in a week. This time is also used for errands. Once a week we go to a local farm to buy raw whole milk and fresh ground flour for our home baked bread. Then we stop by our local food cooperative to do some shopping and connect with friends. In a couple of weeks we will add going to pick our CSA vegetables once a week and doing some u-pick in the fields.
After we are done with our daily errands, we return home for lunch and down time. The kiddos are either tired from being at the gym or want to watch the new videos from the library. Generally my daughter will nap. They are both occupied with their interests long enough for me to sit at the computer for a bit.
This is the time I use to work on my home business. I call people who have requested information, check in with customers, and talk with business builders I am working with. I will also use this time to write blogs and do some online networking at forums and blogging groups. Working from home is a lonely job. A mainstay of my connecting is my blogging buddy group. Three-year-olds don’t really care about computer glitches or missed phone calls. This is my time of the day to connect with others doing the same work and support my working mom life.
When the natives begin to get restless I know we need to shift gears. The kiddos know that their battles are a good way to get me to focus on them so I try to react as quickly as possible to prevent too much damage. I encourage them to come into the kitchen with me. Dinner needs preparation. I find the kids tend to eat better when they are involved in cooking. Being completely honest, there are times when this tries my patience. If the mess starts to get too much I change the focus and pull out a craft activity for the kids so I can finish up. I always envisioned my kids working by my side in the kitchen. As a child, I was cooking at age three and spent a lot of time learning to cook with my mother. It’s a bit different when you have two sets of hands on opposite sides of you grabbing for ingredients and tossing them around. All I see is more cleaning (again, not my favorite task of the day).
While dinner is cooking I get in some two on one kiddo time. We play a game, continue an art project, read books, play marching band or practice our flips from gymnastics. Whatever gets the residual energy out. This is my favorite time of the day because there is nothing to do but hang out. It helps to stave off the afternoon meltdown. They are full of energy and active and I get to be their playmate rather than the orchestrator of our life.
Following dinner, we kick the bedtime routine into gear. We change, snack, cuddle, read, wash and brush. Bedtime tends to be a moving target these days as we are learning how to utilize our independence and influence on life in our home. My son and daughter revel in exerting their new found power. For me, this is the most difficult part of having twins. Everything happens in twos. Sometimes it feels like they have preplanned their attacks. They don’t both meltdown simultaneously. The difficulty of calming a child doesn’t end with one. The other child is happy to get in on the deal as soon their sibling is calm and relaxed again. Everything is amplified and they are uncanny in their ability to stretch out the emotional mess as much as possible.
When they finally succumb to sleep, it is time to clean up the evening mess before diving back into work. The down-side of being self-employed is the boss is a slave driver. She doesn’t give me a break and expects more than is humanly possible. I keep threatening to tell her off but it’s kind of a one-sided conversation. I wouldn’t give up the opportunity to be with my kids all day though. I was here for the first steps, the first tooth, the first word. I know all the boo-boos and every art project. If it means I work harder than a 9-to-5 job, I’ll take it. It’s worth the effort.
My day ends when I run out of steam. A successful day for me is two happy kids in bed at a decent hour and a sense that I gave 100% of myself. I do take time for myself. I schedule “spa days” for me. Time alone to pamper myself and have quiet time away from constant requests and sticky hands. They could happen more frequently but I’ll take what I can get.
Before I became a mom, everyone said you don’t know how it will change your life. Now that I have two children I agree with this completely. I can’t put into words how it changed me. There is nothing you can do to prepare for it. I only know that being a mother has changed how I move through the world, what I think about and what I put my energy towards. It changed my core. I will never be the same again. And I would never go back to the woman I was before.
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