The Jiggle Juggle: Story Time

Balancing Act.
Work-life Balance. 
Working While Parenting.
Working from Home.
Masochism.

These are the commonly-used terms to describe the state of parenting and working  simultaneously. 

Too often, society would have you believe that it looks like this:

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[image of a shiny, happy Asian happy family with shiny, happy housewife and mother serving food at a table]

Or like this:

​[image of shiny, happy, Apple-loving hands over a laptop, with a shiny happy table free of any clutter, tiny hands, fingerprints, food, or food-paint-questionmark-finger smudges]

​​But in truth, it looks more like this:

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​[image of a gray stone statue depicting a facial expression of gratuitous despair]

Which leads to today's juggly jiggly bits:

I was having a normal morning with my daughter, my dog, my breakfast made, my dishes done, my writing ideas planned, my clothes on, and all the daily things taken for granted. My washing machine has been broken for some time and I finally scheduled a service person to come fix it. Today was the day! I was ready like a teen at homecoming. 

The repairman knocked on the door, I let him in, and it made my dog lose all of her teeth in barking, and my daughter lose all of her breakfast in crying and screaming. Still pretty normal any time someone knocks . . . except that before I knew it, I was stepping on my maxi dress, pulling it down, flashing the repairman a full view of breasticles, all while trying to shoe my dog and calm my daughter.

I've wished to one day be intimate and vulnerable with a new person in my life, but I never pictured this was how it would actually come true. I now re-christen this balancing act of working and parenting: The Jiggle Juggle.

How is your jiggle juggle going?