How to balance work, online work and parenting

Being a working mom is NOT easy. It is even worse when I have so many side income work on top of my regular, full time job. It means that on a daily basis I have to:

• Wake up at crack of dawn LITERALLY
• Rush like mad to get my kids ready
• Brave the traffic to drop them off at nursery / babysitter’s
• Go to work
• Fit in expressing breastmilk in between working hours (Yes, I am still fully breastfeeding! We DO NOT have infant formula at home)
• Brave the traffic again to pick up son from nursery and baby from babysitter’s
• Get son to eat his dinner & feed baby (luckily hubby helps by either preparing dinner or buying dinner)
• Gulp down my protein shake
• 15-minute exercise (no matter how busy, exercise is a MUST for our own health and to de-stress!)
• Gulp down my very light dinner (have to watch the waistline you know!)
• Boil water / wash the plates
• Load clothes into washing machine and get it started
• Play with pre-schooler and baby (quality family time!)
• Feed baby
• Tuck both kids into bed
• Start online work, website work and article writing work
• Go to sleep at around midnight
• Wake up at least twice a night to feed baby
• Repeat routine every work day

The weekends are just as bad, if not worse,  because I still have to wake up early, bathe both kids, give them breakfast, boil water,  cook lunch & dinner, sweep the floor, mop the floor, do laundry, keep pre-schooler occupied, feed baby every 2 hours, put them down for their naps, do more online and writing work, exercise, fold and keep laundry, etc…

So, who says we working moms had it easy? In fact, it only meant that I have MANY jobs (not in any particular order):

• As a mother
• As a breastmilk supplier
• As the second income earner
• As a wife
• As an online marketer
• As a blogger
• As a foodie @ The Food Site
• As a writer
• As a part-time homemaker (since I still DO have to do housework when I get home)

So much so that I have lost count of the numerous times I…

• boiled water (why can’t we just drink from the tap without risking diarrhea and food poisoning?)
• do the laundry (please, please, please someone invent self-cleaning clothes! I’ll be the first to buy them)
• change diapers (can’t wait to toilet train the baby!)
• sweep the floor (please, please, please someone invent self-cleaning floors too)
• mop the floor
• wash the dishes

If only there are more than 24 hours a day or that I do not need to sleep at all….sigh…

How did I manage to balance so many ‘jobs’ each day without keeling over and die of exhaustion? Simple.

Exercise & Yoga

Some of you may think that exercise will only tire me out more but that’s not true! In fact, when you exercise, even for 15 minutes a day, it clears your mind, it trains your muscles, it works your heart for cardio health and it gets your adrenaline up. A few times I skipped my daily exercise and after a few days, I feel lethargic, tired and not up to anything! So, I fully subscribe to exercising daily, whether it is a brisk jog, or some strength training routines or yoga poses. It is a totally ‘ME’ time to clear the mind, de-stress, lose the tension and get your body into shape.

Oh yeah, it’s also great to help me get rid of all of my pregnancy weight! YAY!