With two full weeks of this whole two parents working from home thing, I can hardly say that we've got it down pat, but we are starting to find our groove. We both prefer to work in the mornings, which means that on any given day, one of us is not working during our favorite time. Will likes the office to be silent, or worse, to have country music playing (he is a Texas boy) and I have a hard time working in either, preferring soft music like Vienna Teng or Haley Westenra, so when we are here together it's a hilarious show of me not hearing him because of my earphones or shouting at him when I have a question because I've forgotten I have them on. We've kept the kids pretty well entertained, lots of walks and trips to the park and library, which is nice.
I'm finding that I spend much less of my "free time" checking blogs and emails now that my computer isn't in the kitchen, always at the ready, and more time having fun when I'm in mommy mode. Evelyn and I had fallen into a boring sort of routine where most of the day was taken up with chores and email checking and trying to squeeze in a few minutes of writing time here and there. there are still chores, but when Will is working and I'm mommying, I'm more likely to sit outside and watch her swing, or even read a book, instead of using that time to pound away on my computer.
Dinner is a little bit of a struggle. I'm a meal planner so I know what we are having, but this new style of living has left me a little disorganized, and when I'm writing in the afternoons I have a hard time switching into dinner mode. I suppose Will could cook, but I'm so used to it that I suddenly look up at 5:45 and realize that I haven't started dinner. Besides, he's taken over dish duty, which I absolutely hate, so I'm ok with keeping with the cooking, I just have to adjust my brain to either get things started at lunch or remember to stop at five. I've been using a lot of old favorites from Everyday Food and new ones from Jamie Olivers iphone app which, by the way, is the best money I've spent on an app so far. Eaton Mess= Yumm...
We've tried to make it a rule that we start at 9 and stop at 6, working a little more only after the kids go to bed. Will is, surprisingly, much better at it than me. I think I've spent so many years being "on" for all things all the time that the idea of having a start and stop time seems odd, although it's one of the things that I insisted on when we started talking about embarking on this.
The real test will, of course, start Monday, when both kids are home all day, all summer long. And like I said, we're no experts, but so far, so good.
We're pretty much set for the party tomorrow, I'm going to work on cakes tonight and my lovely Auntie Amy gave me the best idea for hats for the kids that means I don't have to whip out half a dozen paper mache hats, which, whew, because I'm not sure they would have gotten done.
Oh, and if you don't read Ohdeedoh or missed this activity yesterday, Evie says "this is amazing!" She's playing with it now, as Daddy tried out his first Friday morning house cleaning. Yipee!