Confession: I left the house with baby pee and spit-up on my clothes this past week. I didn’t really care too much, because that’s sort of my life right now…

Back in September when I was in the thick of busy season, I shared a post about my life as a stay-at-home, small-business-owner mom, photographer and wife. I confessed how life wasn’t easy when trying to juggle all those jobs and how I didn’t have enough time to do everything. And now, during my “downtime” and maternity leave, I’m feeling that all over again.

Life with a 3-year old, a newborn, a small photography business, and a home to take care of is not easy. Before Jack came, I’m not really sure what I thought life was going to be like, but I assumed I’d be able to get back into a good swing of things fairly easily. I was kind of wrong.

Yes, I’ve been able to get out and do things on the regular, keep up with a decent amount of the housework and maintain two healthy kiddos, but I haven’t been able to do everything, and unfortunately that includes the biz. Do you know how much time I had to do JFP work yesterday? Maybe an hour. Do you know how much I’ll have today? If I’m lucky, maybe two hours. Between entertaining Ally, running errands, cleaning the house, nursing Jack (soon I’ll be adding pumping, too), cooking dinner and hanging out as a family (oh, and trying to sleep!), there’s not a whole lot of time for JFP. I know it’s just a matter of prioritizing and I definitely try to plan my days hour-by-hour so I have an idea of what to (hopefully) expect, but it’s really hard to do everything and it’s been very easy to feel behind.

All of “this”, or what I mentioned above, is life, or my life at the current moment. It’s not rare for dinner to be late because Jack decided he wanted to eat early (and I’m the only one who can feed him right now). It’s not rare for me to walk out of the house with pee AND spit-up on my shirt because I don’t have time to change. It’s not rare for me to not be able to sit at my computer and answer emails because Jack is fussy and needs a little extra attention. I’m not at all complaining about life right now. I’m so glad to be where we are as a family and I’m so glad we have Ally and Jack. It’s just a period of adjustment that needs a little bit more time and attention.

So, I’m extending my maternity leave…or my period of doing “light work”, which seems way more appropriate because here I sit, blogging…and next, I’ll go upstairs and answer emails and put stuff together for my yearly taxes…if Jack allows. I thought for sure January 15-March 1 would be suffice for this leave, but seeing how March 1st is tomorrow and I still have emails from three and four days ago that need to be answered (this is a usual no-no for me!), I need some more time to get back into a good swing of things. Thankfully, Jack came during my downtime and I didn’t start scheduling too much until the second part of March. No one is expecting a ton from JFP right now and I need to do the same. I cannot expect myself to get everything done, including working on the biz five hours a day, five days a week like I used to. JFP may take a little bit of a hit because of my lack of work, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about it (can’t ignore the kiddos!). I can just hope for the best, enjoy this time I have with my family and not try to do everything.

Here’s the little man responsible for the pee and spit-up on my clothes this past week. He’s cute and snuggly, so I’ll let it slide. 🙂

Instead of my maternity leave ending tomorrow on March 1st, I’m going to extend it until at least March 15th. So at least two more weeks of “light work” and relaxation…and figuring out how I can do as much of everything as possible. 🙂