The Balancing Act of a Working Stay-at-Home Mom

I pause mid-sentence. There's silence downstairs. I write another sentence, and then another I hear the faint whisper of little voices coming from the bottom of the stairs. I pause.

I consider the options I, a stay at home mom and a writer, now have before me. I can either finish the article I am writing, or I can venture downstairs to see what my children are getting into. I strain my ears, and hear the sound of a bag crinkling. The words Rice Krispies float up the stairway.

It becomes increasingly obvious that I might need to put my freelance writing hat back on the computer desk and put on my mommy hat. I save my work and head down to the stairs.

I can't remember the piece I was working on at the time, though I imagine it centered around parenting or travel, two of my favorite writing topics. I may have been editing my book. It seems irrelevant and fades to the background as mom begins to descend the stairway to see what her little ones are up to.

I see them at the bottom of the stairway, and bite my lower lip. There they are, my two little girls, playing together sweetly. It's every parent's dream. It's a work at home mom's dream, too. After all, if they're playing well together, how much trouble can they really get into?

As they scoop the Rice Krispies from cup to cup, I chuckle. They've poured the entire box out so that it surrounds them. If you didn't know better, you'd assume they were playing in a sandbox.

I contemplate my next move. I could yell and scream. I could spend hours scooping the cereal up and throwing it out. I could punish them. I could take off my mom hat and replace it with my maid hat.

Instead, I get the camera out, take their picture, and head back upstairs. I put my mom hat back on the desk, and start writing again. In this balancing act, it's clear that there are some areas where I'll have to let things slide. Such is the life of a working, stay at home mom.