8 things I didn’t know I was missing out on as a working mom…

I got out of bed the Monday after quitting my job with nothing to do. Slowly as the days turned into weeks, I started to get into a routine. Wake up and feed the baby, say goodbye to my husband and oldest on their way out the door, eat breakfast, apply for jobs, work on my resume, go for a walk with the baby, pick up the oldest from school, figure out what’s for dinner, etc. As I got used to my new normal, I started noticing the things that I didn’t really know I was missing out on as working mom. Some things were small and others made a huge difference within my family. Here are 8 things that I didn’t know I was missing out on as a working mom:

1. I could pick up my son during regular school hours. As an educator, before and after care was always the thing. I had to be a work too early to meet the normal 8 o’clock drop off and got off too late for 3 o’clock pick up. Some days, I would have help, but being able to greet my son after school has been the highlight of my day everyday.
2. I could ditch the pump. I pumped with the first son for a year when I returned to work and absolutely hated it. I have so much respect for exclusively pumping moms because it is work along with work. Pumping 3 to 4 times a day while trying to meet goals and dealing with workplace stress is a lot. This time, I was able to establish a nursing relationship and breastfeeding has been so much easier because of it.
3. I realized that I actually enjoyed cooking when I had the time. Normally, I would get home by 5 o’clock and be completely exhausted. Dinner seemed like a hard decision everyday and it was not easy to manage with everything else going on. I tried meal prepping, finding 30 minute recipes, Hello Fresh, etc. and I started to think that cooking was just not a task that I enjoyed, but that turned out to not be the case.
4. My husband told me I was more pleasant since I quit. I didn’t realize how often I carried the stress of the day into my home. I was always worried about the next thing on my never ending to do list and spent little to no time connecting with my husband.
5. I enjoyed small amounts of me time everyday. As a working mom, I would usually spend Sunday trying to cram a little time to do some of the things I wanted to do for myself. I had to find the time as well as do all of the little things for my family. I find that now, I can take a moment to pour into myself everyday and it helps me to remember that I must be full in order to be able to pour into others.
6. I could see the butterflies. We have butterflies in our backyard and I never noticed them before. It’s those small things that I was missing and I didn’t know how much I appreciated basking in the beauty of the butterfly. While working, I was always on the go and too occupied with getting to the next place that I didn’t notice the little things.
7. I wasted a lot of money. Since we were going from two incomes to one, it was important to scale back on some things. Cable was the first to go then I started eliminating subscriptions, stopped my random trips to Target, etc. I have somewhat become obsessed with saving money and I have a new interest in reading money books and listening to podcasts about making better financial decisions.
8. I realized my family was surviving, but not thriving. I was so used to the everyday routine of going to work and coming home to do it all over that I didn’t see that I wasn’t present with my family. I now see my husband and my boys in a way that I didn’t before.

This time has been extremely helpful in allowing me to see how things can be better at home. As a working mom, it can be tough to balance all of the things and sometimes things will be placed to the side, but being able to know identify when some of these things go from thriving to surviving will help me when I return to work.

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