Let's get a few things out of the way first. I love cuddling with the kids on a snowy day, staying in PJs and baking muffins but when your juggling work deadlines and torn between checking email and finding Polly Pocket's shoes, it's not so good.
It's snow days, when I'm trying to "work from home", that I feel I can't do anything well. Nothing or nobody gets 100% of my attnetion. That's the strruggle.
This week, I remembered the first time I felt like this. Shortly after Ben was born, I was invited up North for a "writers' retreat" weekend with some friends. I was still breastfeeding him, was sleep deprived - the whole kit. I hadn't written in a year and now had to bring something witty and insightful for my writer friends to read.
"I can't go, " I told my friend Gill who had organized the whole thing.
"Take Ben, dust off some old material and come up."
But I struggled with the idea of trying to juggle both. Nothing would get 100% anymore.
But Gill, gave me a new way to do my math, "At times like that, give everything a little - 50% to your writing, 50% to being a mom, 50% to work, 50% to being a wife, 50% to your friends, 50% to yourself. That will add up to way more than 100%."
So on snow days, I remind myself to do a little new mom math -- it gets me through.
