adjusting

i am now a full time working mom with a house husband. except i work from home, so this is a more difficult task than i thought it would be. when i was working from home before the baby, i had a pretty good routine. i could work at my kitchen table to whatever background noise i wanted - tv (rarely, but sometimes), music, or silence. if i needed to take a little break, i would throw in a load of laundry or unload the dishwasher or vacuum the endless tufts of pet hair. then when i was on maternity leave, instead of taking care of my clients, i was taking care of charlotte. and i would basically do chores around the house in the same way.

since our house is so cramped cozy, i don't have a place where i can shut the door and work. thus i am subjected to whatever background noise jared has, which is usually the tv or the baby crying. of course this lends itself to distraction.

another thing i'm adjusting to is losing control over the way the house looks. while i love that jared is making a good effort to keep it clean, the way he does things is not the way i would and it's hard for me to accept. for example, i would rather the whole house look picked up, rather than the kitchen spotless and the bedroom a disaster. however, jared would rather have one area appear perfect and close the door to the other areas. another example, i'm ok with having a folded dishtowel, blender, or neat stack of bills on the kitchen counter, while jared wants absolutely nothing there. i keep telling myself to just let him do things his way because it's his job now but that is SO hard.

if i was gone all day, i think i could handle it better. but since i'm home, i am watching how he's doing things and notice all the differences. how much longer it takes him to do something. putting something away in the wrong place. ignoring the dryer when it buzzes. taking too many tv breaks. it is a herculean effort for me to bite my tongue and focus on work.

i do have an office space in a building that i use occasionally and i have been spending more time there. but i don't like that as much either. it's nice to take a 10 minute break and snuggle with charlotte, and it's better for me to be home every 3-4 hours so i can feed her and we don't go through my extra milk supply too quickly.

i know that it's silly to complain about these things because i'm sure most people would LOVE to be able to work from home and have their husband do the housework. i just need to adjust my thinking and let myself let things go and i'm sure i will be much happier.