This is how I do it...

So a friend of mine who was preparing to return to work after a year off to have her first baby asked me how I "do it." "It" meaning working (out of the house), mom-ing, wife-ing, friend-ing, entertaining, etc.

I was so taken aback by the question -- shocked that anyone would ask me for advice on the topic -- I don't ever remember what I muttered as a reply...

Since that conversation (or lack of conversation, really), I've thought about how I do it... and while I don't have an answer, I do have a few guiding priniples and a few tricks. I'll share one here and add more later...

But before I go there, please understand that by no means am I saying that this is an expert approach... I wouldn't even consider some of this a recommended approach... It's just how I do it.

Guiding principle: Accept that some things will not get done.

The way I figure it, I'm only at home and awake on a typical workday for about eight hours... and in that time I have to do A LOT -- most non-negotiable. Like cooking, feeding and cleaning up after breakfast and dinner; bathing self and baby; changing baby (and, let's admit it, self); tending to dogs and high maintenance hubby; you get the point

So stuff that used to be non-negotiable suddenly becomes negotiable. I'm often faced with the choice: play with your son or fold laundry. So the laundry waits another day (or two)... it's not ideal, but it's not the end of world. I'm a happier mommy (at least until my OCD self remembers that I skipped it the next day) and I have a happier baby, who feels loved and has 99.9% of my attention (I can't totally block out the image of heaping laundry... I AM human.)

I've accepted it. My house will seldom be in perfect order. I have a son. I have a career. I have two dogs. And I have a husband. I wouldn't trade them for a perfectly tidy house (most days). So I don't. So laundry waits. So the sink fills with dishes. All while we giggle and tumble and tickle with our son.

Someday our house will be in perfect order. Someday I won't come home to sippy cups strewn about. But you know what? I bet that on that day, I'd happily trade that house for one full of the sounds of little feet...