There is a new rule in our house: Mommy puts her laptop and iphone away between the hours of 4pm and 8pm. There will be no work done, unless it’s in the form of SK, 3rd or 4th grade homework.

Because herein lies the work-at-home-mom rub.

Well, fine, if we are getting technical, I don’t always work from home. Most of the time I work out of the UrbanMoms.ca office, which really is just this lovely lady‘s living room. But, the point is that I no longer work an 8-4 job. And the truth is that there were a million and a half reasons why I loathed having a typical cubicle job. Mostly it was the lack of flexibility and the lack of actual face-to-face time with my little monsters. I couldn’t take the kids to school every day. I couldn’t pick them up every day. I couldn’t take the kids to the dentist, doctor, optometrist.

And now I am over-the-moon. I have all the things that I didn’t have at my old job.

(My job is dreamy. I get to work in donut pants!)

BUT, when you don’t work a scheduled 4o-hour-week, you are, well, not working a regular 40-hour-week.

What I mean by this is that I drive at least two carpools a day; usually three. I sit in traffic on the way to work. I sit in traffic on the way home from work. I get three children ready for school. I feed three children 87 times a day. I go to dance on Mondays. Play rehearsal on Tuesdays. Play rehearsal on Wednesdays. Swimming on Fridays. I do dishes eight times a day. I do laundry eight times a day. I do homework 3x.

So, I work in between all of these things. I work in the morning before school. I answer emails while I sit in the carpool line. I make phone calls when the kids get home from school. I work in the early evening. I work in the late evenings. I work in the late, late evenings. In truth, I work way more than 40 hours a week and I am way more productive than I have ever been in my entire life. There’s no 4:00 magic time on my computer that tells me that my day is over. There’s no one to tell me to stop working. There’s no one to force me to take lunch breaks. There’s always something that needs to be done, somethings that needs to be answered, that needs to be emailed, that needs to be checked, that needs to be written.

I don’t know how to not work.

Until now.

I am forcing myself.

Starting today.

Between 4 and 8.

My kids need it.

I need it.

But mostly, the kids need it.

Or

But mostly, I need it.

So, it’s official. From the time I pick them up at 4 until Isabella goes to bed at 8, I am theirs. There will be no “just let me check one little thing” or “you are just going to have to wait one second” or “I’m just on the phone, can you wait one minutes?”s. My faces will be in front of theirs instead of in front of a screen.

But after 8pm…that screen in mine!

I’m sure there will be lots of “it’s after 8! It’s MY TIME!”s and “you are just going to have to wait one second”s and “YOU HAVE BEEN PUT TO BED”s and “NO I don’t want to watch Cake Boss while I work”s. But they will get their time. And I will get mine.

I just hope mine involves lots of wine and cookie dough while I work.

Because I’m classy like that.