TYLENOL® has been highlighting untraditional families as part of their “#HowWeFamily” campaign, since untraditional families are becoming more of the norm these days.
When they asked me to participate, I wasn’t sure what I would write about initially. My family seems pretty traditional. But after thinking about it, I realized my family does actually do things a little differently. Especially over the summer, when I am out at our house with the kids for two solid months and Mike is commuting back and forth on the weekends.
Typically, Mike and I split responsibilities with me doing more childcare and him doing more household duties (including the cooking as I’ve mentioned many times before). Even with Mike in the city, it’s interesting to see how the responsibilities remain largely the same.
Mike is still grocery shopping when he gets in town for the week and making sure we have everything when he leaves. He’s still vacuuming on weekends, going OCD on our fridge organization and monitoring the AC using some mobile app all the way from Manhattan. (This drives me crazy because it’s always TOO HOT when I wake up and it takes me a few moments to realize why.)
Meanwhile, I’m getting up with the kids on my own, getting them ready for the day, packing lunches and taking them to camp.
At night, I’m putting them to bed, saying good night to Mike over Facetime and then going back to work after everyone else is sleeping.
No easy feat considering it takes me about two hours to convince Harlow to stay in bed.
The other untraditional part about our family is how much my personal life and my business overlap. The blog has always involved the kids but now Mike has started taking on a lot behind the scenes. We actually have a shared family calendar just for blog stuff so Mike knows when I need him to participate in a shoot or why I’m taking a picture of our sunscreen while on a family outing at the beach.
There’s a lot less eye rolling that way.
The family calendar also helps plan things where I promise not to take any photos whatsoever, like on a recent kayaking trip with the kids. (OMG, the photos would have been SO GOOD.)
In general, the blog lets me take time out of my work day to do special stuff with the girls— like a Parisian playdate or a snacking taste test— which is awesome.
Otherwise, I’d be working all day on my laptop.
Because working from home with kids is impossible, Seri (my office mate from the city who also lives out here for the summer) has invited me to work at her place during the week, since both her kids are in camp all day. She also invited Abby (our shared assistant) to spend the summer and together we’ve moved the whole operation out east.
At 9am, I leave Harlow with our sitter and drop Mazzy off at camp. (This is how they say goodbye to each other every morning which is the sweetest thing.)
Harlow always stands out in front of the house with the sitter and waves to us as we drive away.
After drop-off, I drive straight to Seri’s house and all three of us sit around Seri’s dining room table on laptops, like our office away from the office.
As opposed to our closet the city, we’ve got private places to go if you need to take a phone call, a fully stocked kitchen and the opportunity to eat lunch outside on the back porch.
Sadly, that only happened once but it was GLORIOUS.
After the kids get out of camp, Seri and I sometimes have everyone over one house for a big playdate. If we’re especially busy we’ll throw on a movie.
We also try to plan special nights to do something fun like take the kids to the beach for a picnic dinner.
Roast marshmallows outside in Seri’s firepit.
Or go to an outdoor concert in the park.
Mike comes back on Thursday nights. If he gets home early enough, we’ll go out to eat somewhere, preferably on the water if the weather is right.
Most nights though, I work straight through the day and leave Seri’s at 5pm to go home for dinner, just like I would any other time of the year.
Then I get to hang out with my girls in the sun porch or play outside in the yard until it’s time for the kids to go to bed.
When everyone is finally sleeping and after I’ve said good night to Mike over the phone, I set up my laptop on the kitchen table and work as late as I can on my book.
Most nights I don’t get very far until my eyes are closing and it’s time to go bed myself.
How do you family?
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I have received information and materials from Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., the makers of TYLENOL®. The opinions stated are my own.
I love your blog and have been reading it for years. I’ve even saved some of your funniest blog entries about your family adventures with Mazzy and Harlow on Pinterest.
i stumbled across this article and it reminded me of your authentic and funny (and always incredibly loving, proud and supportive of your children) posts on Mommy Shorts.
http://www.katesurfs.com/2015/08/15/the-actual-reason-why-children-are-800-worse-when-their-mothers-are-in-the-room/
My boyfriend and I both work full time, but we work opposite shifts. I work at a computer software company, and my day starts at 7am and ends at 4pm. I’m lucky enough to get an hour lunch at 12pm-1pm, and since I live five minutes away from my job I get to come home and eat lunch with our three year old son, while Sean gets his uniform ironed for work, does some laundry, or something along those lines. He is a server at a restaurant. He goes into work at 5pm and normally closes, so he doesn’t get home until around 1am or later.
Daytime routine is all dad (during the week), evening and nighttime routine is all me (all the time). My boyfriend has Wednesday and Thursday nights off of work, so that is when we have family time. We don’t get to do much as a family in terms of vacations or fun weekend stuff (Sean doesn’t get any personal/vacation time at his job, so if he works he just doesn’t get paid…needless to day, he doesn’t ever take weekends off since that is when he makes the majority of his money).
I love my family, and while I wish we could spend more time together as a unit, I appreciate the fact that my son never had to go to daycare. I went back to work when he our son was three months old, and I believe that helped create the awesome bond they have today.
Another downfall is that Sean and I don’t get much alone time. Since our schedules are different, the nights we are able to spend time together, we don’t want to be away from our son since he doesn’t often get to see us both at the same time.
I have a 37 mo old boy and a 21 mos old daughter. My husband and I work opposite schedules, me 7:30am – 4:30pm M-F and him 6:30pm – 4:30am w/ Weds and Suns and every other Sat off, so he is home with the kids during the day, sacrificing a lot of sleep and I do the evenings and overnights all week long. He takes a quick nap before work and I let him sleep a lot on his days off, so we sacrifice a lot of us time, but are saving a ton on daycare and our son will be going to preschool 2 half days a week this fall so that should help. My husband doesn’t get paid time off either so its usually without pay if we want to take a vacation, or a day trip to the zoo as a family. Our kids are a little perplexed when they see us parenting together, but we are so accustomed to our separate routines after doing it this way for 3 yrs now that I can’t imagine my life any differently, however I will not solo parent a third child this way unless it’s a couple years down the road because it’s just been too hard with them so close in age!
Im a stay at home mom to my three year old daughter. Her bio dad is not involved except for an hour a month. We just moved together with my boyfriend a few months ago but I continue doing a large majority of things here. We all go grocery shopping together and he’ll walk around the store with her looking at all the things she wants to see while I shop which gives me time to think about what I buy. Im responsible for laundry/dishes/cooking and everything childcare. But that’s okay for the time being. Its what we’re used to.
I recently found your blog and went back and read every post. I adore it. I used to work as a preschool teacher before becoming disabled and I miss being around kids, your girls are adorable! I LOVE the photo of Harlow sitting on the steps with the “I’ll never go to bed, ha ha ha, evil villain laugh look on her face” it’s truly priceless!
I forgot – on weeks when Evan is out of town, I actually hire someone to come watch the kids while I go to taekwondo… that way I get to stay sane(ish) about doing everything else! 😉
We live in rural Oklahoma and farm and run cattle. My husband also has his own small construction business. My husband works about three jobs on a normal day, which means 10-12 hour days are the norm. We don’t have any kind of set schedule. Running a farm with live animals to care for, you get use to it. We do have a lot of flexibility, which allows us to take a Tuesday off to do personal stuff if we were busy working all weekend. Luckily, our business is a family affair, the kids can help and be involved in. We have four kids, aged from 8 to 1. My eight year has already had to drive a pick-up down a dirt road, and rides a horse to help gather cattle. Since I don’t work outside of our business, it allows more flexibility and time together. I get to be home when the kids are home. My husband, despite working long hours, still comes home and helps with the laundry, dishes, home improvement. He usually gets home after dinner, around the kids bedtime, so he will sometimes walk in the door from working 12 hours, dirty from head to toe, and head straight to their rooms to read them bedtime stories.
My husband leaves the house at 6:20 am, he gives me a kiss goodbye and that is when our 11 month old baby and I wake up. I change his diaper and give him a bottle, he plays in his crib for 10 minutes while I get a quick shower in. I have my vanity set up in his bedroom so that while I get my hair done, he has a chance to play, I get him dressed, grab the diaper bag and head out the door. At 7:05 am we are off to the babysitter, my sister is a stay at home mom with two boys, one in middle school, one in high school, so she is able to watch my son for me. I commute to an office, three days a week and work from home two days. On the three days I go to an office, my husband does the evening pick-up and I head straight home from the office and start dinner. On the two days I work from home, I still take my son to my sisters, who lives 7 minutes away and return home to work from there. I cannot work at home with my son there alone, it is against policy and I would never get anything done anyway. The two days I work from home saves me 2 hours a week in commute time and I don’t have to get dressed up just to drop my son off at my sisters. I make dinner Sunday through Thursday and breakfast and lunch on the weekends. I do most of my kitchen prep on the weekends, I grocery shop, and plan all our meals on the weekend. We sit together for dinner every night and after we eat I do the dishes while my husband gets some one on one time with our son. After dinner is cleaned up we all play together for an hour. We start bath time at 7:15 pm, followed by a story and bedtime around 7:45, it takes me anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes to get our son to sleep.
I go back downstairs and repack the diaper bag for the next morning, I pack lunches, prep dinner for the next day and then finally get a chance to sit down and relax for a bit with my husband. It usually includes me falling asleep on the couch while trying to watch a show with my husband. We have a service that comes every other week to clean for us, they take care of the ceiling fans, bathrooms, mopping the floors and dusting. I vacuum pretty often since my son will pick up anything off the floor and eat it. I do all of the cooking, dishes, lunch packing, laundry, clean the cat boxes and feed and water the animals daily. My husband and I have pretty traditional roles, except I also work full time. We are definitely off balance in that regard, and I am not sure if I am just too much of a control freak that I have to get everything done that I don’t let him help, or if I do it so well he does not realize how much I actually have on my plate. He takes the garbage out, does the yard work, and car maintenance.
Love this post. You, my dear, have a spectacular life albeit in photos. I know we’re only seeing the highlight reel, but man, it all looks so pretty!
Ok, my husband and I are NOT parents of the year. we have little if any structure, the kids are on devices at least 75% of the time and we’re horrible with routines! I’m not a very structured person so I’ve been sorta winging this parenting this for the past 9 years. But, now that school has started for us (in California), I am desperately needing to lay down the law. Right now, we’re both walking the kids to school since our son just started Kindergarten, but that will change. We’ll probably take turns. Dad goes off to work at 8am and I leave a bit later. In the evenings, he picks them up, I drive home for about 70 minutes and the night “routine” starts. As of today, kids are only getting devices on the weekends. They need to focus on homework and reading at night. We get home at about 6:30ish and start planning dinner at 7pm (need to overhaul dinner routine. plan is to cook/prep over the weekend.) We both do cleaning and cooking, with most of the cooking being my responsibility. We eat dinner, check homework, make sure reading gets done, take baths and go to bed by 8:30. No easy feat here either. So much to cram in just an hour and a half. Most of the time, they’re going to bed closer to 9, but they sleep in until 7am. I know, I know, go ahead and judge. But we’re working on it. After they go to bed, we hang out and watch tv while I’m either reading or working on my side biz. Then, it starts all over again the next day.
Just seeing this…LOVE it!
Now can Mike grocery shop for me too?????? That’s how I summer! ha.
xx
this summer, I was out of school so I went back to being a stay at home mom (so exicted yet sad that it ends on monday.) Little man and I spent most of the summer at home playing in the yard. Daddy works M-F 8 to 5 with a 45ish minute commute so he gets home between 5:45 and 6 and we make dinner together then It is play time with daddy and then bed time. weekends where our family time and we had all kinds of adventures over the summer.