May 26 10

Sometimes working from home doesn’t exactly work.

For me, my best productive work is done when all three kids are at school and I am sitting in my yoga pants and a tank top in the hallway in front of my iMac with a giant cup of coffee beside me.

It is NOT done while sitting in my bed beside a child who wants to watch Spongebob and wants to eat breakfast and wants a drink and needs help wiping and wants to get dressed and can’t find her favorite dress and needs help turning her underwear the right way and needs a snack and wants to watch another Spongebob and needs another drink and wants me to draw her a butterfly and needs me to get her some more paper and wants some cherries and needs me to wash her hands after she has cherries and needs help finding the marker she dropped behind the bed and needs help wiping again and wants another Spongebob and wants help wiping up the drink she just spilled and needs help getting a new dress.

(And the chewing. OH MY GOD, the chewing. When a child sits beside you, practically draped on your person, and she’s eating popcorn out of one of those plastic bag things and every single crunch and hand dive into the bag makes this bag crackling noise that makes typing coherently almost entirely impossible? Yeah. I hate that.)

But this is my life post-preschool graduation and pre-camp starting. Three weeks.

Three weeks of, well, not being very productive.

So, I’m giving up on productivity.

And I’m trading it in.

For mornings spent at the pool.

For conversations about how much more awesome it would be if Spongebob lived in a big giant piece of swiss cheese instead of a pineapple.

For trips to the zoo.

For discussions about what she wants to be when she grows up…”a butterfly…or a doctor”

For arguments about whether or not pop-tarts are considered healthy snacks.

For afternoons spent at the pool.

For chalk masterpieces.

For drawing butterflies while wearing a bikini.

For eating popsicles in the backyard.

For riding the bikes at Target.

For explaining, for the 847th time, that NO, I do NOT have a baby in my tummy and no, I do not need Proactiv.

For watching the Food Network.

For evenings spent at the pool.

And as long as she stops chewing in my ear, it’s going to be great.

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  1. Man, I wish I could be spending my time doing all of those things right now. Well, most of those things.

    You have the rest of your life to work, right?

    Comment by Kristabella on May 26, 2010
  2. Damn, I’m jealous. I need a “work from home” job. Although I would add golf and beer into that list. I would do much more of that for sure.

    Comment by Hockeyman on May 26, 2010
  3. Oh man, trying to work through the school breaks/child care overlapping days is a nightmare. You definitely have the right idea of just giving in and making the most of it!

    Comment by Miss Britt on May 26, 2010
  4. sounds absolutely perfect – enjoy!!! I wish I had a pool…

    Comment by maria on May 26, 2010
  5. I’m a little (OK, a LOT) envious of the chance to play with my baby girl.

    Enjoy. 🙂

    Comment by Angella on May 26, 2010
  6. That’s my future in 2 weeks when my girls’ schools end, but I’ll get a mini reprieve when they start mini-summer camp in late June.

    But I’m not complaining about either side of it.

    Comment by Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] on May 26, 2010
  7. My daughter, WHO IS ONLY TWO, recently looked at the wrinkles between my eyes and said “Mommy? You have cracks?”

    So I’m sure that once she knows what Proactiv is for, she’ll be asking me about that too. 🙂

    Comment by Rebecca (Bearca) on May 27, 2010
  8. OMGAWD I’m tearing up. Cheers, cheers. I’m currently trying to change my work situation so that I can soak up all their preschooly goodness. 🙂

    Comment by Jen on May 27, 2010
  9. Deb appears to be in hell when I come home every day right now, as we’re between preschool and summer camps.
    You should let her know when you go to the zoo, though…we’re members and go fairly often (like last Saturday night).

    Comment by muskrat on May 27, 2010
  10. sounds like far more fun than work to me!!

    And I vote future profession as a butterfly 🙂

    Comment by Bronnie on May 27, 2010
  11. Kids are really gorgeous at this age. And slightly crazy….Or is that really crazy and slightly gorgeous? Just enjoy it anyhow:)

    Comment by Catch the Kids on May 29, 2010
  12. That’s my life too – half term is coming up, which means a holiday for me whether I can afford it or not, because I simply can’t work while they are running about the house.

    I mean, I CAN, but it’s more fun not to. And it’s not very fair on them.

    Comment by pixielation on May 30, 2010
  13. I sometimes feel like I’m doing/feeling something wrong when I complain about my daughter being out of school for the Summer, but 3 months is a long time to fill with activities and no scheduled breaks. It’s great that you see the next 3 weeks as a chance to hang and have fun, but you know that you’ll have a change in routine after that. Sounds pretty ideal to me!

    Comment by LZ on May 30, 2010
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