Work-at-home mommying

A few weeks ago I was at the grocery store trying to choose produce that was the correct degree of ripeness, unblemished, on my list and at a price I was willing to pay while interacting brightly with my child and keeping her from standing up in the seat of the cart.

The phone rang. I recognized the number: a freelance call. Do I take the call, and risk a long intellectual conversation while wheeling my acrobatic baby through the grocery store, probably much to the annoyance of fellow customers and employees alike? Or do I ignore it, and risk the potential client moving on to another freelancer.

I can't resist: I answer. And all of a sudden, I'm doing three things at once, getting paid for one of them if I choose to bill for it, no less. This particular client never asks if now is a good time to pick my brain about current trends in marketing writing, and is rather long-winded, so we talk all the way through my grocery list and the baby gets to eat all the Cheerios she wants as long as she'll just keep quiet and let Mommy earn enough money to buy another box of them.

(As a side note, I never billed for the conversation--I just didn't think it was fair to the client that he was competing with store-brand dried beans for headspace, despite the fact that he never knew he was.)

Later I realized how bizarre my life has become, thanks to the fact that mundane house chores and peekaboo fortunately occupy completely different brain real estate than my writing does, allowing me to take on freelance work without hiring a babysitter (yet).

And so, ever since Kalina was just a couple weeks old, I've been a work-at-home mom. It's the best of both worlds, I tell everyone. I get to change diapers full-time, and also enjoy the benefits of answering to clients and meeting inane deadlines for weird requests.

I spend far too much time doing three things at once, however, I will say I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to have a career that allows me to work from home, clients who don't care if there's a baby crying...er...laughing in the background and a pursuit other than pattycake to keep my mind challenged.

That doesn't mean this whole career-child balance doesn't have its moments. I consider it sheer luck, in fact, that it works out at all. Between Kalina's somewhat precarious sleep patterns and the fact that you never call a freelancer if you have a project that's easy to handle on your own with plenty of time to do it, every project is a potential disaster.

At first, I would write while Kalina was sleeping in my arms (the only place she seemed to be able to get a good nap). I became an expert at typing one-handed. The next stage had Kalina taking 4-5 45-minute naps a day. This meant that every single conversation was just about guaranteed to be interrupted by some sort of baby maintenance, all too much of which the client was in on (a very rushed: "just a sec I have to go put the pacifier back into the baby's mouth because then maybe she'll sleep a little longer so I'm going to put the phone down now I'll be right back," for instance. Fortunately, most of them would patiently stay on the line.).

Then Kalina was napping better but not sleeping at all at night (remember those days?). The fact that people would pay for my brain, which was about as useful as a snow fort against Genghis Kahn at this point, was pretty much the only thing that could make me laugh. To add insult to injury, I never, ever, wanted to admit to clients that I was sleeping about 5 hours a night, broken into 1-hour chunks--so I was forced to respond with a bright "we're doing great!" whenever they kindly asked how mommyhood was going. Nevertheless, I built my business and created plenty of satisfied clients during this time.

Nowadays, my job(s) is easier, as Kalina is more predictable and more distractible. That's right, freelancing is easier with a toddler than with a 4-month-old.

The biggest challenge through all this is maintaining any degree of professionalism. Let's face it, most of the phone calls I get are when Kalina is awake and bouncing around. I normally love showing off my adorable child, but when my poor clients are on the line, I want to downplay her antics as much as possible. "Oh that?" I respond when they comment on the gurgling they hear in the background as Kalina tries to dump the cat water on her head, throw several breakable objects onto the floor and then crawl up my leg. "The baby is just happily playing in the other room!" I assure them.

Because the last thing I want clients to think is that I can't handle taking care of a toddler, the house and their enormously important marketing letter at the same time when, in fact, I can.

[Please burn this after reading lest my clients ever get wind of it.]

Photo: Kalina in a dress I received at a baby shower and never thought she'd grow into. She was the belle of the nursery at church.