Lessons of a part-time working mom in a creative field

Keeping up your creative side is a challenge being a mom, especially daunting if it's a required part of your job. As a new twin mom it's pretty tough because keeping everyone happy often means finding ROUTINES that work and sticking with them. I spent some time the other day thinking about what has helped me the most with keeping up my creative side when working and when mom-ing. This is what I came up with:

+ Seek out other part-time moms to hang out with at least once in a while. I found myself overly critical of myself when I was always with just SAHM or else moms who worked outside their house full-time. Even though it was my own issues hearing what they were up to made me feel I wasn't giving either enough attention to my girls or enough creativity to my job. I know it was silly, but hey, post-partum/nursing hormones and being sleep-deprived doesn't really lead to being even-keeled. So checking in with other part-timers is great.

+ When you have time to read again, find a book that talks about the various stages of parenting. Yes, I mean all the way through the empty nest. I kind of stumbled on one at the library and took it home and, admittedly, just skimmed it but,man, it makes me feel better when I feel like I'm just not going to get through the next few hours. Helps me give me some concrete image of the distant future to keep it all in perspective.

+ Get rid of as much technology as possible on the days you're not working. It took me a little while to figure this out, but throwing myself into watching the girls on the days that I did - i.e. no email except during their naps and avoiding the phone - helped improve my performance in both realms. I will admit to trying to write an email about a story idea to my editor with unhappy kids in the background and no one won in those cases.

+ See this time as an opportunity to learn what you really love about your job and try to just focus on that as much as possible.

+ Keep up your creativity when you're not working OR watching the babies. For instance, date night should always be somewhere new and different. When you're exhausted going somewhere familiar sounds so appealing. But I've found even though I'm usually initially annoyed with my husband for insisting on going to a new neighborhood or town for dinner when we do get away from the apartment, I'm always really glad for the new perspective.