College Student Mom - A Day in the Life

Being a college student and being a mother are two completely different lives, and when you are both, things can get a little bit hard to handle.

Fortunately, the ability to go to school online from the comfort of your own home makes this task slightly easier, but when you get down to it, do you not think it would make it a little harder? I mean sure, you save money by not having to put your child in a daycare facility while you physically attend courses at a conventional campus, but now you have to find time to sit in your virtual seat while raising your child.

Attending school online has its own set of difficulties, given the asynchronous learning environment. Adding the stressed of motherhood, or fatherhood for that matter, can drive anyone mad quickly. This is my daily life. I go to school ¾ time at the Art Institute Online, taking three courses a quarter. I raise a four-year-old little boy, and earn a few pennies here and there from my writing submissions here at Associated Content, while searching countless websites for legitimate work at home positions to solidify extra income for my family.

Therefore, my nerves wear thin on a daily basis. I seem to live in front of this computer screen. Somehow, though, I manage to make above average grades in all my courses, make more money here than I had originally counted on, while making sure that my son is never neglected. Though the house is always somewhat cluttered, and never anywhere near spotless, it is generally always presentable to unexpected guests.

How I manage this some days, I do not know, (yes, I do get at least six hours of sleep a night), but here's what I do to keep all my priorities straight and tasks completed.

My son and I wake each morning at 7:30. While I make breakfast, lunch and dinner (I believe in a cook once a day philosophy) he quietly watches Noggin. After we eat, he and I work on some worksheets together, and then I speed clean the kitchen and living room. 9:00 rolls around and I work on schoolwork for a solid hour while Joe plays in his room, or on his V-Smile Gaming System. At 10, I break and do a load of laundry or something and focus on Joe until Noon. He plays with his dad before he goes to work while I re-heat the lunch I made earlier in the morning, and we eat. After lunch clean up, he naps from 1-3. For the first half hour, I vegetate, and plan the rest of my day, and from then on until he wakes up, I write. When he wakes up, we eat a snack, and I work on getting the sides for dinner done. We play and relax until about 5 when we eat, then I clean up, and we play a bit more until 7. Then it is bath time, story time, and then the toys go night-night when we clean up his room. He is always down by 8:30PM, and that gives me two more solid hours before his dad comes home from work. I am always in bed by 1 AM, and ready for the next day. If it were not for scheduling and planning, I would not be able to accomplish nearly half the things I do in a day.

So next time you are crunched for time and stuck with a to-do list a mile long, remember the life of a college student mother!