Working Mom Woes and Making Up for Quality Time

How do working moms survive instances like this?

One morning, R woke up and caught me as I was about to leave for work (she was teary-eyed):
R: Mommy dito lang tabi ko tulog
I lay beside her for a few minutes. She calls out to her dad.
R: Daddy opis
Me: Mommy office too.
R: No dito lang mommy tabi ko tulog
Me: I'll come home early anak, play tayo later
And I left, even if it hurts to see her crying behind.

These past few days are even tougher. At present I'm in the middle of a big engagement at work, and with my dad in the hospital, I can only spend a couple of minutes or luckily a few hours with R during weekdays.  Weekends are different though, cause I really made a vow that those are sacred for my family. My full time is devoted to them during those days, which I will share in a different post.

I'm quite lucky to be in my present job and department with flexible hours and provisions that sometimes allow me to work from home when necessary. My regular schedule (if I have no tight deadlines or big engagements) is from 8am-5pm. With that, I can be home by 6pm (or 7pm if sobra traffic) and just focus my whole attention on R. We either sing and dance to Barney, Dora or Blues Clues. We play luto-lutuan, parlor-parlor, doctor-doctor and kung anu-ano pa. We also love exploring apps in the Ipad. We eat dinner together and have story-time before I tuck her in bed.

Here are a couple of  our precious moments during hassle free weekdays:

Blowing bubbles

Coloring and tracing

Story time before bedtime

So how can we working moms make quality time during weekdays, here are just some tips I apply:

1. Strictly follow your work schedule and to-dos for the day to avoid overtime. Avoid procrastinating or wasting time on social networking sites (hondali sabihin noh?!). I try to blog when my child is asleep during the night or early morning before going to work.
2. Manage not only your time but also your superiors' and staff. Agree on deadlines and try as much as possible to stick to it.
3. When at home, be at home. Honestly, I'm guilty of this. Because I leave early from work, I have the tendency to still open the laptop at home. If you really need to work, just do it after your child has fallen asleep.
4. Make your child feel that he/she is your top priority. Ung siya naman ung boss mo ngayon. Do whatever they want to do. Kung gusto ka nila puluputan ng kung anu-anong borloloy sa katawan, go lang. If gusto nila magsayaw kayo or kumanta, go lang ng go, keber sa kapitbahay.

Those are just some of my tips based on my learnings/experiences sa aking two and a half years experience of being a working mom. I'm sure maraming batikan moms out there na mas madami pang ways on how to balance work and quality time with their kids. What's important is knowing your priorities, and everything you do will subconsciously be geared towards that.