Thursday, July 09, 2009

Toddler: 1, work-from-home mom: 0

Have you ever tried to work on a computer while a 15-month-old insisted on sitting on your lap?

And I don't mean, the checking-your-e-mail or writing-a-blog-post kind of work. That's not work, that's the modern day mom's concept of multi-tasking.

By work, I mean actually trying to read the highlighted sections on the papers you've carefully spread out on the desk (that your 15-month-old is now drawing colourful squiggles on with the pretty yellow and pink highlighers you stupidily left beside them) and typing up a report while the same 15-month-old pounds the keyboard to add letters to each word, grabs and clicks on the mouse and then tries to climb right up on the desk and grab the phone/pens/scissors. And in a final trump move, the same 15-month-old decides that, although she still must sit on your lap and now sort her crayons, you may also not have your hands anywhere near the keyboard -- because they are in HER way.

Needless to say, she won the pay-attention-to-me-not-the-computer war and I closed my files and went back to them after dinner when Ryan was home to watch the kids.

Being in the freelance business is working out great so far, but I need to learn to either a) work faster during nap time, b) not try to finish up "just for a few minutes" once nap time is over or c) learn not to let her sit on my lap.

Yeah right, she's trying to draw on the computer screen with crayons as I type this.

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