Category: motherhood

Working Mama Files is an interview series designed to support and encourage working moms along the path to having a fulfilling life.

Today’s episode features one of my favorite bloggers, Sarah from Beauty School Dropout. She and I have a ton in common: professional careers with creative hobbies and small children. She’s a great one to follow for goal inspiration and managing life as a working mom. I’ll let her introduce herself to you in more detail, but be sure to check out her blog!

Who lives in your house?

I live with my husband, Matt, my two boys, who are 4 1/2 and 1, and my old grumpy dachshund, Lucy.

Will you tell us a little about your current job and how you ended up there?

I am a municipal attorney. My primary job is to represent the Planning and Zoning Commission and work with the Planning Department, but I also represent the Health Department and Information Systems Department.

I started off my career working for a small law firm, but I hated tracking billable hours, always feeling like I should be billing more, and having to work on weekends to catch up. (And I didn’t even have kids at that point!) I worked there for about three years, and I was really ready to make a change but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.

I applied for a job with the City that I felt completely unqualified for, and didn’t get it, but they kept my name on a list of potential hires and called me when there was another opening. I’ve now worked there for almost 7 years.

Your situation seems very similar to mine in that you work in a non-creative profession but then make time to be creative in your personal life. You also seem to have a lot of projects going on at any one time. How do you manage your time so that you can fit everything in?

That is definitely a challenge!  I have always had that dual nature – creative and academic – but throwing kids into the mix makes it a lot more difficult to do everything I want to do. Lately, I find cooking to be a creative outlet that I can totally justify spending time on, since we have to eat! And I’ve always scoffed at those people who make elaborate bento-box lunches for their kids, but I recently tried something similar by arranging all the pieces of my son’s lunch really artfully on the plate, and he devoured it. (Which never happens!) And it was kind of fun to play around with it and make it look pretty.

On nights when I manage to get both kids in bed before 9pm (which are sadly rare – my children are night-owls like my husband!) I will sometimes knit while I hang out with my husband, talking about the day or watching a TV show. Most of my scrapbooking (I’m a Project Life-r like you) gets done during lunch breaks at work.

How has goal-setting been influential in your life?

Thinking through what I want to accomplish, breaking it down into smaller steps, and working towards it is the only way that I get anything done that takes longer than 30 minutes. Whether it’s a long-term goal like training for a half-marathon, or something more mundane like feeding my family healthy meals each night, it takes planning ahead to accomplish.

With two little kids and a full-time job taking up most of my time and energy, I use goal-setting to get myself back into balance. Maybe one month it’s focusing more on fitness if I’m feeling sloth-like, or trying a few new recipes if I’m in a rut of making the same meals all the time, or making prayer or Bible study more of a priority when I let other things creep into that time.

Your family is in the middle of a move and you are currently “living” in two houses. Can you describe that situation to us?

My husband is a pastor and he recently changed jobs from a church that provided a housing allowance to one that provides a parsonage.  Originally we were planning on splitting our time between the two houses so my husband and I could take turns commuting and we could keep the kids at their same preschool and babysitter, but a space opened up in the public preschool in our new town, and I found a new babysitter there amazingly easily.  After a lot of prayer and discussion, we decided that the right thing to do for our family was to move into the parsonage and sell our old house.

So because of the move, right now you have a lengthy commute. I can relate, as I commuted for 2+ hours each day for six years and only recently made a change. Although I resented the commute at times, I also tried to see it in a positive light as “me time.” What’s your take on that? Do you have any thoughts or plans on how to cut back on your commute?

It takes me about an hour and ten minutes to get from home to work these days – longer if I’m running late and hit morning traffic. It IS a lot of time spent in the car that I could be using to do other things, but I am an avid reader and the silver lining of the situation while I drive! Luckily I have a very understanding boss and I have negotiated to be able to work from home two days a week. That lets me help my husband with the morning and afternoon routine with the kids on those days, and saves gas money.

You mentioned your husband is a pastor. Do you also take on any roles in the church? Do you find that you are expected to be a leader there?

Being a pastor’s wife is definitely an interesting experience. In our current church, I feel that I’ve really been embraced, since there aren’t many young families in the church, and we’ve got two (mostly) sweet little boys that bring a lot of energy with them wherever they go. Right now we are working on building up the children’s ministry in the church, so I am helping with that even though working with children is definitely not one of my spiritual gifts. I’m also hoping to start a MOPS (Mother of Preschoolers) group at our church soon. So, I feel like my leadership responsibilities stem from wanting new programs at the church rather than any expectations from the congregation. (I have been asked to sing in the choir, which I’m going to try to do even though I haven’t sung in years, because I want to help them out. If I can figure out child care during the practices…)

I imagine that his schedule looks much different from yours. How do you make sure to fit in family time? What about time for just the two of you?

Surprisingly, I’m finding that my husband’s role as senior pastor of a small church is much more compatible with our family schedule than being an associate pastor (focused on college-age ministries) at a large church. There are fewer evening events/meetings and even when he’s got something going on (like youth group) he’s a short walk outside our front door. During youth group on Sunday nights, for example, a lot of times the kids and I will walk over and chat with the youth and watch whatever game they’re playing. I think my kids are becoming the youth group mascots (or pets?!)

Finding time for us to spend as a couple has been challenging, but that’s mostly because living in a small town, there aren’t that many options for date nights! Since I’m working from home two days a week we sometimes spend the mornings of my work-at-home days drinking too much coffee and working side-by-side at our kitchen table. It’s shocking how quiet our house is when there aren’t any kids in it! We don’t have any relatives close by to take the kids for a few hours or overnight, but both sets of parents are really great to help if we want to go on a trip and send the kids to Grandma Camp. We have a trip planned to Boston for next spring!

What has been your biggest struggle, doubt, or resistance so far being a working mom?

Unlike most working moms (at least those who are talking about it), I don’t feel a lot of guilt or sadness about going to work every day. I am a better mom because I have an identity and purpose outside of mothering. My biggest struggle is housework – I don’t like doing it that much in the first place, but it just drives me crazy that it’s NEVER DONE.

In your experience, what is the best part of being a working mom?

For my personality (INTJ), I need quiet, alone time to recharge my batteries.  I have to admit, sometimes when I sit down in my office on Monday mornings, I breathe a sigh of relief (and wait for the onslaught of work craziness to begin. But it’s a totally different kind of crazy than at home, which is a good thing!)

Do you have any practical tips or ideas to pass along that help you lead a more joyful, fulfilling life?

One thing I’ve learned as a working mom is that I have to plan for fun – weekends can be short, and I hate the feeling of getting to Sunday evening and feeling like I wasted it.  I don’t like a jam-packed weekend, but I try to figure out at least one fun family thing to do along with the normal chores and errands, and church on Sundays.

Now a few questions for fun…

How do you like your coffee? Or are you a tea drinker?

Coffee with whole milk. I also love tea with a little honey as an afternoon pick-me-up.

What was the last good book you read?

Shotgun Lovesongs by Nikolas Butler.

What’s on your nightstand?

So much randomness… Books (MotherStyles, The Divine Hours – Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime, Minimalist Parenting), a pair of earrings, a ball of yarn, a toy tiger, and a breastpump. (I don’t know why it’s there… I hardly ever use it anymore. I blame moving.  Half our furniture is still in the old house for staging so we have things stashed in all kinds of weird places.)

Favorite social media site?

Instagram. It’s my happy place – I hardly see any of the negativity or click-bait-y stuff there like I do on facebook and twitter. (I do love a good twitter convo, though. I’m just kinda sporadic about using it.)

Can you recommend one blog you read?

Be, Mama, Be written by Cara Meredith. Cara blogs about faith and her family, and she has an awesome guest post series going called the little things. I even got to write for it – my piece was called Fresh Eyes.

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Join me in thanking Sarah for her thoughtful answers! And be sure to connect with her on her blog, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook! And p.s. be sure to come back tomorrow for a special giveaway Sarah and I are participating in. :)

See all the posts in this series here.

Working Mama Files is an interview series designed to support and encourage working moms along the path to having a fulfilling life.

Today I’d like to introduce you to another one of my good friends, Kessi! We attend church together and are part of the same family life group, and her son attends the same daycare as Meredith. When we discovered that we both have similar taste in books and crafts we became immediate friends, and then when we did whole30 together we became friends for life. :)

Kessi is several years younger than me but she has already been through so much in her marriage and motherhood! She’s one of those people who it’s easy to laugh and cry with, often within the same minute. I’m so glad she agreed to join me today!

Who lives in your house?

My house is home to my husband, David, four-year-old son, Caleb, our five-year-old Golden Retriever, Jude, and our 6 month old floppy-eared bunny, Jett.

Will you tell us a little about your current job and how you ended up there?

I stumbled into a job with my current company, NOV Elmar (a division of oil giant National Oilwell Varco) in November of 2013. I had been job searching for about six months, but hadn’t found anything great. I honestly had forgotten that I had applied to the position (in project management) when I got a call for an interview. I knew, without a doubt, that I would love the company and the position just minutes into the interview. Evidently, they liked me, too, because I got the job offer less than 24 hours later!

Since then, I have transitioned into a new role in Health, Safety, Environment (HSE). I have never worked in HSE before, so I’m definitely still on a learning curve, but I LOVE it. I feel like this job matters because it is completely concerned with the people who make up my facility, not just a product or a bottom line. I get paid to care about people, and I don’t think it gets much better than that!

You were pretty young when you got married and had your first son. How did you have to adjust your expectations for your life and career after such a big life change so early on?

Young seems like such an understatement, in hindsight! I was 22, David was 23, and we had no clue what it really meant to be a real-life, tried-and-true married couple. Fortunately, we found our rhythm pretty quickly and settled into life… and then along came Caleb in June of 2010.

On the career side, I was working a job at a medium-market radio station. Yep, I got paid to play music and talk to people… but it was a tough job at that point in my life. All common perception aside, radio is not a well-paying profession and the hours are long, the events can be brutal because of their duration, and the atmosphere (bars, outdoors in 100 degree heat, late night events during fair seasons). In the end, I left the radio station because the hours and effort were not mutually beneficial to the time that I was spending away from my new son.

For a good chunk of time you were the single-income earner in your family. Can you tell us some more about that situation?

For a long time, life was really just about getting by. David was working on his degree after spending his traditional college age years serving our country as an Infantryman in the United States Army. David received a National Guard paycheck once a month, but that was really chunk change. Because I was bringing home the bacon (bacon bits, really… the pay wasn’t much), most of the time we went without the “finer” things in life… no splurges on cable, we didn’t eat out unless my parents were kind enough to take us out. We cloth diapered – mainly out of necessity for Caleb’s super-sensitive skin, but we were also fueled by frugality. I learned to find sales, clip coupons, consolidate trips to town for a multitude of errands instead of running back and forth for one or two things many times.

How did you manage financially and emotionally during your single-income days?

Financial survival is 100% credited to David. He was a meticulous penny pincher and budget setter. He kept (still keeps) a spreadsheet of all expenses, created a system for our spending that involves five different bank accounts, and he somehow managed to keep my shopping habits under control.

Mainly, we learned to do without the things that I was once so sure that we needed… but no one actually NEEDS a pedicure every two weeks, and nobody actually NEEDS to see movies before they come to Redbox. We had to define luxury and necessity and classify every expense into one of those, and most of the things in the luxury column were slashed so that we could afford the things in the juxtaposed necessity column.

You experienced the loss of your second child. Would you mind sharing that story with us?

Our son, Jacob Martin Wilhite, was born on April 25, 2012 and passed away shortly after birth. My early pregnancy with Jacob was incredibly easy, especially since my pregnancy with Caleb had me mapping out every restroom within a 5 mile radius of where I was at any given moment… I seriously found my morning sickness to be all-the-time sickness with my first pregnancy.

On Good Friday 2012, I woke up to get ready for Easter festivities with my family, and something was very, very wrong. Just 18 hours after my last OBGYN appointment, where everything looked perfect, I found myself completely dilated and effaced. I had lost my cervix completely and Jacob’s amniotic sac was protruding from my body. From there, I went on complete bed rest. I did not get out of bed for anything. I ate my meals laying at a 5% decline. I did not leave my bed when natured called. We, as a family, prayed and fought for Jacob for a very, very long time.

God’s plan for Jacob was not for him to spend much time in our arms. It wasn’t for us to bring him home, to nurture him and teach him and love on him. God’s plan was for us to love Jacob for a short time on earth and for eternity as an angel in heaven.

How have you been able to move forward from that, and how do you think it has changed the way you parent your first son?

I don’t know that I’ve moved forward. Honestly, there are some days where I just consider the act of moving a victory. I continuously have to make a conscious decision to make the life and death of our son something positive, and I do that in part by staying involved in a ministry called Mommies Enduring Neonatal Death (M.E.N.D.) – check them out at www.mend.org. I also started a foundation that provides financial support for the headstones for families who experience pregnancy loss and neonatal death; information on this can be found at www.onesmallmohment.com.

Losing Jacob has definitely affected how I parent Caleb. I found myself apologizing to Caleb once because I felt like I was putting pressure on Caleb to fill the hole that I felt in my heart after Jacob died. After losing Jacob, I have made an intense effort to notice things – to notice everything about Caleb. Life is temporary and fleeting and I don’t want to miss a single moment.

What has been your biggest struggle, doubt, or resistance so far being a working mom?

The lack of time is a huge struggle. There are just never enough seconds in the day to do the laundry, cook the meal, play with the baby, catch that football game. There is always something that has to be sacrificed, even for the greatest of multi-taskers (which I am not).

I would love, absolutely, LOVE, to be able to be Mommy full-time. I would love to be a part of Caleb’s entire day, not just the first 30 minutes and the last hour and a half of his weekdays… but that just isn’t possible for us.

In your experience, what is the best part of being a working mom?

I am very blessed with my job. I have an amazing group of men and women who I work with whom I actually enjoy spending time with. The fact that I like my job and (most of) my co-workers is the best part of being a working mom, since I have to be a working mom.

I thank God for the amazing job that he’s given me, for my supportive boss and work family who understand when I need to slip away and spend time with my husband and son, and for the education I’m receiving from working in HSE – things that I can apply at home and help safeguard my family while I’m with them.

Do you have any tips or tricks to pass along that help you lead a more joyful, fulfilling life?

In the face of things that seem dire, bleak, and devastating, find something to smile about. If you find that hard to do, ask Jesus for help.

Now a few questions for fun…

How do you like your coffee? Or are you a tea drinker?

Iced coffee (Chameleon, in a Mason jar, if possible) with a small splash of real dairy creamer.

What was the last good book you read?

I recently did a re-read of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. That book is more magical every time I read it… and it tends to put me in a 20’s daze for weeks after finishing it!

What’s on your nightstand?

On my nightstand, I keep a picture of Jacob along with a poem and his footprints. At any given time, you can usually find my journal and a pen and my iPad (which for me, is my library), there, too.

Favorite social media site?

Hi, I’m Kessi and I’m addicted to Instagram… @omgitskessi. I Instagram my food a lot… #i’mnotsorry

Can you recommend one blog you read?

I read Keight Duke’s blog, www.putapuredukes.com, quite regularly. Keight is hilarious, blogging about life things from crafting (she’s pretty talented), to loving her husband in the image of God’s commandment of love, to sharing her children’s birth stories (you’ll laugh until your stomach hurts and cry until your eyes beg for cucumber treatments). Keight is inspiring and witty and devoted to all things family and Jesus.

Also, she’s a rebel and doesn’t use capitalization… When I grow up, I want to be like Keight!

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Join me in thanking Kessi for her honesty and insight! Read her blog and connect with her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. :)

See all the posts in this series here. 

Working Mama Files is an interview series designed to support and encourage working moms along the path to having a fulfilling life.

Today I’m delighted to host Johanna from the blog These Prices. She is a beautiful writer who never fails to inspire me and touch my heart. She has a deep faith and I have so loved following her story of the adoption of her two children. Recently she made the transition to stay home with her kids, but before that she had a full-time job in ministry. I’m excited to share her with you today!

Who lives in your house?

My husband Aaron, me, Harry (3.5) and Posey (22 months). Plus two dogs, Eller and Scout.

Up until recently you were working a job that, as you say, wasn’t “just a job” to you. Will you tell us about it and how you ended up there?

I was the communications director for a large, multi-site church. We began attending there shortly after we moved to Minnesota, and about a year later, I was hired FT as part of the Communications team. About two years after that, I was promoted to director. No one goes to work at a church for money or glory; I definitely felt called there, and I stayed there after I became a mom because it wasn’t just about paying the bills. It was about doing Kingdom work, and I knew that was where God wanted me.

What led to your transition to staying home with your kids?

Shortly after I went back after my second maternity leave, I started to feel a stirring that it might be time to move on from full-time ministry work. (Which can be really hard at times.) But other times, our lives really worked. I’d been on a 32-hour a week schedule since my oldest was a baby, and for the most part, our lives worked. I felt fortunate to have that extra time with my kids while also getting to do work that I loved and work that I was really good at. But that schedule was also hard; there were Fridays where I felt like I wasn’t present enough with my kids, because I was checking email or answering phone calls. And there were many times where I felt like I wasn’t leading my team well, because I wasn’t there on Fridays. Or I always had to leave on time, because I was the one who needed to get home first to relieve the nanny. And just “like that” (not really that quickly, but it was one of those things that felt like it happened over a long period and also all at once), one day the pieces fell into place for me to be able to leave FT work. I felt like God had released me from that calling and that He was calling me home for this season.

A big part of your story involves adoption. Will you give us a brief overview of how that came about?

The short story is that we struggle(d) with infertility, but knew we really wanted to be parents. After two years trying to get pregnant, and losing one baby, we made the decision to pursue adoption. We were chosen by our son’s birthmother the same day he was born. About a year and a half later we were connected with a woman who was looking to make an adoption plan, and she chose us to be her baby’s family. Our kids were born two years apart, to the day.

How did your job do maternity leave?

I was able to take up to 12 weeks per FMLA. Because I didn’t give birth, I was of course unable to have any of that time paid the way most American women have their leave covered (short-term disability). So with our son, I only took 8 full weeks. I then took my remaining hours spread out over a 10 week period at 15 hours a week. (Something a lot of peple don’t know is that FMLA is broken down by the hour, so you actually get 480 hours). It was hard to go back when he was so little, but it was great to only work 3.5 days for several months. When my leave was used up, I was able to go back as a limited full-time employee. Because we had a longer lead time to prepare for our daughter, we were able to save so that I could take the whole 12 week leave at once.

Even though your kids are adopted, you were able to provide them with some breast milk. How did that work?

Incredible mothers! We received enough donations for Harry to have at least one bottle of breastmilk a day for almost a year. But with our daughter we were blessed like crazy, and her diet was almost exclusively breastmilk. There were several women who donated to us multiple times, and one woman even pumped just for Posey for a time.

When I think about you, I think about faith. I’m in love with the posts you write about keeping the faith in this motherhood journey, and especially how you link the adoption of your kids to our adoption as children of God. How do you keep your relationship with God a priority?

That is really kind of you to say, because sometimes I don’t feel like I do! I connect with God through singing, so I listen to a lot of worship music. And this might sound kind of simplistic, but I just think about Him a lot. Psalm 1:2 says to meditate on his word day and night. I kind of think that’s what that means. Not that we’re cloistered away reading scripture by candlelight, but that we’re just always thinking on Him. Staying attentive to His spirit. He wants to talk to us. He wants to guide us. But our lives are so noisy; so jammed full of stuff (sometimes literally), we can easily crowd him out. I want to live awake.

What kind of things do you do to teach your children about God? Anything structured or does it just flow naturally?

One thing we’ve started doing over breakfast is read a daily devotional written just for preschoolers. But the biggest thing is to pray with them. Now that Harry’s almost 4, he has started requesting who he’d like to pray for. The other night he wanted me to pray for stars and sheep. At first I had no idea how to pray for those things, so I just started talking, and I ended up praising him for his awesome creation and talking about how we are his sheep, and how grateful I am that He is shepherd who guides us and loves us. The other thing that I think really helps—both for me and to show my kids who God is to me—is for them to hear me praying when I need help. When I feel impatient or frustrated, I pray out loud. Even when it’s them I’m impatient and frustrated with!

What was your biggest doubt, fear, or resistance in being a working mom? And now that you’ve experienced both perspectives, what do you see as the benefits of it?

I never saw myself as a working mom, so when I first went back to work, I struggled with that identity. I also allowed lies and people’s judgments to crowd out what I knew was right for both my family and my faith. It took me awhile to stop letting those lies color the way I viewed myself as a mother. Other than providing financially for my family (we never would’ve been able to pursue a second adoption had I not been working), my children learned that other people can love and care for them. I learned to allow people to do that. I contributed to a mission I believed in, and I was walking out my giftings and the calling God had placed on my life. Being a working mom taught me that God’s grace is big enough. It’s big enough to cover your children while you’re away from them. It’s big enough to fill in the gaps when you feel like you’re not good enough.

Do you have any practical tips or ideas to pass along that help you lead a more joyful, fulfilling life?

Learn to rest. Be present. Be proactive about finding the way that you connect to God and then do more of that. (I’m still trying to get better at doing all these things myself.)

Now a few questions for fun…

How do you like your coffee? Or are you a tea drinker?

I like coffee all ways! Now that I’m Whole30, I take it with coconut milk. Not sure if I’ll ever go back to cream (at home), but I also definitely like a coffee-shop treat from time to time. (And when they’re allowed. Looking forward to a PSL in October!)

What was the last good book you read?

Reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King right now. It was a really random purchase, but I’m enjoying it. Gone Girl is probably the most recent book I’ve read that has really stuck with me.

What’s on your nightstand?

My Bible, a photo of my husband, phone charger, an antique lamp that belonged to my grandmother, and a stack of books

Favorite social media site?

Instagram, hands down. I could do without the others if I had to, but not Instagram

Can you recommend one blog you read?

I read everything by Kristen Howerton at Rage Against the Minivan as soon as she posts. I like her no-nonsense approach to parenting, and I really look to her as a guide and mentor in transracial, adoptive parenting.

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Join me in thanking Johanna for sharing her story with us! And connect with her on her blog, Twitter, and Instagram.

See all the posts in this series here.