Last weekend I posted about waiting for our new childcare arrangement to start.

As I waited, I started working part-time doing marketing consulting work for clients remotely. I did it when I could during mornings, naps and evenings, with weekends reserved for batch tasks and deep work requiring more concentration.

On weekdays, I logged on from our home office but on weekends with my husband at home, I would head to a local coffee shop and even set up a second desk station in our bedroom so I would be nearby but out of sight, out of mind. I only came downstairs for meals, tea breaks and to water the garden with our son and have a sprinkler session.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot work from our ‘office’ room if the kids are downstairs and awake.

They are like puppy dogs, pawing at the glass doors, wanting to help me with my keyboard and push all of the buttons. Sometimes they literally want to just lie at my feet…so I find it is simpler to surrender than to resist it. I either stop working or I put on my invisibility cloak and head upstairs or to a coffee shop.

But soon (and for the first time in over a year!) I will be doing the bulk of my work on weekdays with weekends reserved for more family adventures as we transition our youngest to daycare. I am misty-eyed at the change to our bond but they could also be tears of joy for rearing another child until they walk and are no longer latched to me clusterfeeding.

You don’t really know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone.

Co-sleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, cuddles. Those tender moments are sweet but they also make the newfound freedom (and reminder of what it actually feels like) to concentrate on a task for longer than five minutes and sleep through the night all the sweeter.

I had been struggling with the guilt of having someone else look after my now toddler/previous baby and I came to the conclusion that: it is ok for other people to help us, look after him and build his trust in other people.

Privacy, free time, sleep, booger free tops.

I am potentially entering into smug parent territory so I will leave you with this…it is ok to change your plans. Change your mind. Change your life. Hell, I have moved countries four times it is DEFINITELY ok by me to change all of the above.

Life is for living and experimenting, find what works for you and if it is elusive…keep trying new things! 

Anyone else switching things up, making sacrifices or designing their own way of mixing life and work?

Our mother and child bond went out with a bang today, as we hosted the latest Babies, Business + Breakfast Summer 2019 Pop-Up Event!

Thank you to our venue partner Algonquin College’s DARE District and staff member Victoria Ventura for hosting us in their Incubator space; to guest speakers Carlo Lombard and Rose Cain for sharing your marketing and sales wisdom; and to all the parents who registered to attend and showed up with/without your kids to support more inclusive business and professional development programming.

There were kids approaching the speakers, building towers on workshop tables, snacking in strollers, parents networking, writing notes, asking questions…and you know what? There were limited tears and the vibe was very chilled out.

Looking forward to sharing a recap over the next week on my blog but for now here are some quick snaps from the event!