The Home Office

Remember these cute kids? Cute, yes. Cooperative, not always.

As you know I work from home. Most often it's fine; but we have our days. I typically try to keep my "work days" to Tuesday and Thursday. Joe stays home in the mornings at which time I lock myself in my office/bedroom/Isaac's room and become the most productive employee on the face of the planet (unless I need to assist in a meltdown or administer a feeding). There are however times when something comes up on M W or F that I have to attend to.

Take a few Monday's ago for example. I needed to be on a conference call at 10:15am with my boss and a potential advertising vendor to discuss a contract proposal. A proposal that I would be pitching to one of our clients. I thought oh, 10:15, not a problem. Isaac takes a nap at 10, Ari can entertain himself for 30 minutes, no big deal. WRONG. The morning ended up like this:

10:15 Isaac still not asleep
10:19 Isaac falls asleep
10:21 I jump on the call. Late.
10:25 I'm being brought up to speed and while helping Ari with something I accidentally push the "end call" button at which time the fake lady announces Lindsey had left the call.
10:27 I go to call back and something on Ari's truck breaks. I try to fix the truck.
10:29 Almost back on the call and Ari has a huge MELTDOWN. Truck broke again. Can't call in with a screamer.
10:35 Meltdown is almost under control when I realize that said meltdown has woken up Isaac.
10:36 Boss sends me a text Sup
10:37 A crabby Isaac is awake, Ari get's in trouble, Ari has another meltdown because now he's in trouble.
10:38 I text back Must have brushed end call. Now kids falling apart, I'll have to call in in a minute.
10:39 Boss texts back I've got this.
10:45 Everyone in the house is still crabby.
11:05 Isaac back to sleep
11:06 I transcribe the following email:
__________

I'm really sorry about the conference call today. With a little pre-planning I can usually maintain a certain level of professionalism while working from home. Today was not one of those instances.

Lindsey
__________

Generally speaking I've gotten pretty good at working and multitasking. Sometimes I multitask a little too much, like the time I had to help Ari go to the bathroom while on the phone and only afterward realized that it must have sounded like I was going to the bathroom...or the time Ari came running in and yelled my penis hurts into the phone. Ya, I started letting the answering machine get the phone a little more. But really, what can you do about Ari parading by in his undies in the middle of a video conference call when you thought he was asleep?

It's not always pretty, and I'm still fine tuning my technique. Mostly I try not to feel guilty on the days I work for not being able to play trains with Ari at a moments notice, or for putting Isaac in his bouncer longer than he would like, or not cooking dinner, or not volunteering at my local volunteer place, or not helping my cancer stricken neighbor with her 5 children, or not having the time to train my dog to stop pooping in the neighbors yard, or not making my kids frilly scrapbooks...

But I am extremely grateful to have a job with an understanding boss that allows me to stay home with these little fellas. Even if they are not always cooperative.

Photo 1: Work/Train station. Photo 2: Scribbled work notes/child's art pad.