Days and nights

I think I might be about to write a post about something other than parenting. Woah. Could it be possible?

I've been at my job now for close to a month and I think I'm getting into the swing of things. When I first started, the whole facility was undergoing a change and didn't have many clients, so the people training me had tons of time to spend with me. It was a little overwhelming, as it was my first real exposure to the massive amounts of paperwork that come along with community mental health and county funding, but it gave me a pretty good picture of what I was going to be doing.

After two weeks, the facility started filling up again and my trainers became largely unavailable. At the same time, I started getting my own clients and situations started coming up and that made my work hours get busy very fast!

I've always had a major problem with procrastination. At school, at work, wherever. If I have too much unstructured time on my hands, I tend to procrastinate as long as possible before finally getting down to business. I've always gotten my work done and done a good job, but I'm not really one of those on-task-all-the-time type of person.

I am thrilled to have finally discovered a cure for my tendency to procrastinate. First, a time limit: I'm only there for five hours a day, so I don't have as much time as I used to. Second, too much to do: I have enough work to fill up a full-time job. I get to work and spend the whole time trying to get stuff done and putting out fires and finishing as much paperwork as I can. Then, bam!, it's 6:30 and time to go home.

Even though I have full mornings with the kids, it seems like that was another day by the time my work day is done. Vice versa, my mornings with the kids are so packed with feeding, nursing, changing diapers, sitting M on the potty, entertaining, reading, driving, cleaning, etc., that it seems like it's been a long time away when I get to work in the afternoon.

This is all very good for me. I feel like I'm getting stuff done and making some kind of a difference, even though really I'm just trying to not make too many big mistakes at this point. I feel productive. And I feel generally glad to have this job and very happy at home...although if you catch me at the end of a rough morning, I might not be singing quite the same tune :) I do feel much less guilty about leaving the kids, though.

Now my big problem is that by the time I get home and put Mateo to bed and Sacha and I have dinner, it's after 8 pm and I feel like I just got home. I want to have some time to unwind, but I know it would be better to go to bed right after Talia does around 9 pm. I hope that as we get more used to this routine, I'll get better at finding time for myself some other time and getting to bed so I can be more rested.