Finding and Keeping your Balance

     I thought that because I was a great multi-tasker that I would be great at keeping a good balance in my life.  Boy was I wrong.  Before I became a stay at home mom, I was a 911 Emergency Service Dispatcher.  Talk about the ultimate in multi-tasking.  We had to answer all 911 calls and then dispatch according to the type of emergency, whether it was police, fire or medical.  Then, you had to talk to the officers, firemen, and paramedics while answering other calls and giving instructions in CPR, childbirth, or even just giving directions (yes, people actually call 911 for directions!).  Sometimes calls were easy to handle, like someone who hit a deer with their car and just needed to make an accident report.  Other times, they were extremely hard, like helping calm and instruct a mother who had just found her child had attempted suicide.

When my husband and I decided that I would be a permanent stay at home mom, I thought it would be easy compared to the career I just left, and in some ways it was.  I didn’t have the job stress that comes along with a career as an Emergency Dispatcher and I was blessed with babies that really liked to sleep in.  But finding balance at home was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.  I wanted to read or just have some quiet “me time” but my kids wanted to play.  I needed to get housework done and dinner cooked, but it was beautiful outside and I wanted the kids to play in the backyard.  I really needed to find my balance, and quickly.  What I learned was that sometimes the laundry can wait.  The floors don’t have to be mopped every day and gourmet meals are not required every night.

     Once I started to put chores like this into their proper category of importance, I actually found I had more time to do the things I wanted to do as well as needed to do.  I wasn’t stressing over every little thing and I was okay with leaving a basket of laundry unfolded (check out my article on Discipline to see what happens to baskets of laundry in my house!).

     Now that my kids are getting older and do not require my constant attention, it is a little easier to keep a good balance between chores, kids and me time.  I have always enjoyed writing and have finally started to pursue that as my second career.  I don’t always get the balance right, but my God helps to keep me on track.  I spend time talking to God every day, even if it is just while I’m doing dishes.  It makes me feel closer to God and gives him the opportunity to help me keep that perfect balance.