It’s funny how quickly you adapt to change once you’re faced with a sudden disruption in routine. The house is messier than it’s been in quite awhile (well, for us - I admit to being a total neat freak) and I’ve been spending way too much time in front of this screen. I’m the kind of person who needs to make the bed each and every morning, but lately, there are days when I just don’t bother. When I had the kids all to myself 3 days a week I was much more energized to keep the house in order and this was my built in free time, away from work and away from the computer. I was motivated to schedule playdates, socialize and organize activities, but now that Mark is home, I find myself falling into a routine of turning this machine on first thing and launching into work straight away, often without a break till dinnertime. Freelance is like that. It can be nonstop for weeks or months if you’re lucky, then suddenly, work dries up and there’s nothing.

We managed to keep afloat the lean times because there was one of us with a steady paycheck with health insurance and a job that could be left at the workplace. Now that we have started this business, I worry about how it will impact the kids since life and work is now getting even more blurred and we’re both distracted and thinking about business. When I didn’t have adequate childcare I stressed over needing to respond to client emails and phone calls during the day when I didn’t have anyone to cover me. Now that I have coverage 7 days a week, I worry that I’m ignoring my kids altogether because I have so many deadlines and I’ve been needing to work every day. I made the decision to stay freelance for the last 5 years so that I could have more time to spend with the kids, but it’s not easy to achieve the perfect work/life balance if you’re a working parent of any kind no matter what your work situation is. Our life seems so much more hectic now that we’re both home, which comes as a bit of a surprise, and it’s overwhelming to think that it will get even more so once we do launch this thing out in the world. Is anyone else in the same situation as we are? With both parents self-employed?