first name: Beth

age: 31

occupation: By vocation I am a mom and outdoor educator. These days I am a mom (full-time at home) and the youth program director for an Episcopal Diocese (part-time at home). I just finished my first book, and I’ll be teaching my first college class in the fall. (These last 2 things I do because I love them, not because I have the time.)

how do you structure your time and space? In regards to space, thankfully our new-to-us home has an extra bedroom that serves as the office/craft/library “quick – close the door, company is here!” space. This room has revolutionized my work life because I can start something and finish it later without needing to pick it up. I keep quiet toys in Eliot’s room and the louder ones in the living room. As is true with many toddlers, no matter how many toys we have (too many, thanks to the generosity of all sorts of people), his favorites will always be the broom, mop, my knitting tape measure and the blower-upper thing that came with my (underutilized) exercise ball.

As for the way I structure my time, a couple months ago, Eliot started sleeping past 6:00 a.m. on a regular-ish basis. Since this sleep change, I’ve been setting my alarm in a (not always realized) attempt to wake before him for a little yoga, e-mail check-in, to-do list overview, and, when I’m lucky, reading or knitting. Otherwise, my day revolves around his schedule which is dictated by me but must not push past his need to sleep or be crazy. I try not to work when Eliot’s awake but he loves “helping” with housework and cooking. I believe in adventures to pass the time (the park, walks, zoo outings, grocery shopping, working in the garden).

Most of my work gets done while Eliot sleeps in the afternoon.  Thursday mornings he goes to a Mother’s Morning Out program (which is almost done for the summer – yikes!), and Tuesday mornings my husband takes him to the park or somewhere just as fun. It’s impressive how much work I can get done in an uninterrupted three hour period. Since Mitch’s schedule is flexible (he’s a priest at a small church), when I need a day to finish a project he usually can accommodate this need.

I have always been a morning person and I envy all those who can work late into the night. My evenings are usually reserved for a sit-down family dinner, Eliot’s bedtime routine (Mitch and I swap dinner clean-up for bath/play/bed) and knitting or sewing. Most nights my day ends with The Daily Show.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? It’s almost time for summer camp. Directing the camp is the most consuming part of my youth program director job. I have to work more and be more creative and disciplined with my time. One blessing of my job is that Eliot is always welcome – to meetings, events and the office (when I go). Naturally then, he is at camp with me, which makes life both easier and harder. Of course it’s also late spring and I can still tolerate the heat (you can take the girl out of the northeast …) so Eliot and I go on lots of adventures whenever we can!

Mitch and I moved to our current town only a couple months ago. This move has been wonderful and rewarding on so many levels. Our new space and community bring so many highlights to an otherwise challenging season. It’s hard to get overwhelmed when good distractions abound.

-What season(s) preceded this one? The season preceding this one was easily the most challenging of my life. We left a wonderful, loving seminary community when I was eight months pregnant. Our new home came with a new baby, new jobs (for me, motherhood), new culture and no grandparents. Needless to say, we have learned a lot!

One of the things I’ve learned (and continue to work on) is that I often (always) set the bar way higher than is possible for me to reach and therefore am regularly disappointed. I’ve been working on replacing “should” (I should do x, y and z … all perfectly) with “need to” or “want to” – this is part of why my current season is so comfortable.

-What season(s) might your future hold? I’m not sure what’s coming next. We like where we live (the town and our home). We’re managing our money better than ever before, paying off debt, and can finally start to see the end of that tunnel. We’d like more kids one day. I want to teach more and write more and craft more. Way down the road we hope to move back to the northeast but we aren’t feeling particularly antsy about anything these days (a delightful feeling, for sure).

favorite family activity/activities: going to the park, the zoo, our community garden, or anywhere else we can think of that gets us outside; playing ball of all varieties; disc golf; cooking/baking; reading

 favorite solo activities: knitting, sewing, reading, yoga, hiking/backpacking

sources of inspiration: My mom has always worked from a home office (she’s an accountant), and when I get really frazzled, she is always there. She’s there when I’m not frazzled, too! We talk usually once a day via phone, IM, or Skype, which allows her to see Eliot’s current state of crazy. My friends all provide inspiration in their own way: friends who have clergy spouses, multiple kids, creative output, or a love of the outdoors.

best MakeShift moment: Ever since Eliot was tiny, my shower time has been the easiest part of the day (and he was a hard baby). At each new stage I come up with creative things for him to play with in the bathroom – the bouncy chair when he was tiny and a blanket and some books to chew on when he was little. A Mr. Potato Head version of Elmo currently resides in one of the vanity drawers. He’s always loved books so that’ll get me a little time but lately he’s at the water stage: filling, pouring, washing. For the most part the water even stays in the sink! Like most mothers, I can tell what is happening most anywhere in the house just by listening. When all I need to listen for is on the other side of a curtain, I can be pretty sure what he’s doing and when.

find beth on the web:

• blog: http://weteyelashes.wordpress.com
• book/curriculum: To Serve and Guard the Earth: God’s Creation Story and Our Environmental Concern http://www.churchpublishing.org/products/index.cfm?fuseaction=productDetail&productID=8465#

first name: Jessica

age: 36

occupation: 

• Teacher on a looong sabbatical
• Full-time mom and housekeeper
• Part-time student, studying for my English as a Second Language (ESL) endorsement
• Part-time employee of The New Teacher Project  (TNTP) as Lead Selector with Memphis Teaching Fellows, selecting candidates for an alternate certification program and placement in the Memphis City Schools

how do you structure your time and space? Because my work is part-time and mostly on Saturdays, and my kids are now both in school every day, I have a lot of my weekdays free to take care of “my stuff.” I spend part of every day exercising (running, stretching/yoga, boot camp, walking), keeping house (laundry, laundry, laundry), reading/studying/writing papers, and running errands/preparing menus and meals. My “office” is my kitchen counter. I have struggled a bit with using my time wisely so that I am not overwhelmed when a deadline is looming, but I am starting to get the hang of it. My goal is that I do not have to do any of my schoolwork and very little housework once the kids and husband get home so our evenings and weekends are free for family activities. About half of the time I meet that goal.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? The highlight of my current season is having so much time to myself. The challenge is using this time wisely and staying mindful of how important this time is. I don’t know when or if I will ever have this kind of time again to read, garden, study, and have lunch with friends. I am trying to get as much enjoyment as possible out of this season. I sort of look at this as my retirement time. Soon, I will go back to work full-time. Some days it is hard to face a full day at home alone, but I am learning to be thankful every day for time to just sit in quiet if I want to.

-What season(s) preceded this one? The season preceding this one was definitely not quiet. It was one of noise and song and laughter and tears. I spent about five years with my babies/children at home full-time and several more with part-time preschool. It was hard sometimes, but now that it is over, I realize how short that time was. Before having Lillian, I was a full-time teacher in a middle school in North Memphis. I loved it, and it was a more difficult decision to stop teaching than I had ever thought it would be.

-What season(s) might your future hold? My future definitely holds another season of teaching, either part-time or full-time. I am working on my ESL endorsement because it is something that has always interested me and there are more opportunities in this field for part-time work than with regular classroom teaching. I am torn, though. I love teaching middle school Language Arts (I know, I’m crazy). But, I have another year of courses and I’m looking at increased part-time work with TNTP in the coming year. So, no matter what happens, the next season will be busier, with less time for myself. 

favorite family activity/activities: walking the kids to school together, walking in our neighborhood and through the old forest of Overton Park, being at the beach, riding bikes, listening to music at the Levitt Shell, camping, traveling, playing games, reading together, and enjoying homemade pizza and movie nights

favorite solo activities: running, reading, drawing, cooking, baking bread and other goodies, gardening

sources of inspiration: my husband and kids, my parents and sister, my dear friends, my Dream Group, music, and nature

best MakeShift moment: As several other “mothers of invention” have noted, bath time is full of great makeshift moments. My kids’ tub time has often given me the opportunity to talk to them the whole time while clean the rest of the bathroom. Bath Time was always alphabet time when the kids were younger. We had foam bath letters, and we made a game of identifying the letters and/or making words with them. Or, I would read the newspaper to them (and me!) while they were bathing. Now that my kids are getting older and my daughter takes showers by herself, I don’t get as much of that time. But, I do still put little Charlie to work while he is in the bathtub. I give him a little baking soda, he makes a paste, and cleans the tiles within his reach while I clean the rest of the bathroom. He has a ball, and I get a clean bathroom. Win-win makeshift moment.

[if you know someone who would make a good “mothers of invention” feature, check out the questionnaire and nomination process located on the sidebar to your right.]

[remember to scurry on over to this post and enter to win a custom-made superkid cape for a super kid in your life.]

first name: Beth

age: 35

current state: North Georgia

living situation: I live with my husband and our two daughters, who have recently turned seven and four. We live in a 1960’s brick house on a street with big trees and old neighbors. Our other family members are a miniature dachshund and a terrier.

occupation: public school reading teacher

how do you structure your time and space? I taught elementary school full-time until our first child was born. At that point, I began a job-sharing arrangement with another teacher. I teach four hours each morning, working with students who are performing below grade-level in reading. I feel a strong calling to my vocation as a teacher, and I enjoy maintaining a professional identity in a job that I love while also being present for so many of my girls’ day-to-day activities and experiences. It’s an unusual situation for a public school teacher, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to structure my job in this way. Practically speaking, my type-A, list-making self loves knowing that, five mornings a week, I can go to my classroom, prepare for my teaching day in relative quiet, and spend the next few hours immersed in quantifiable tasks that do not involve quibbling over who got more Goldfish crackers or why we can’t watch another episode of Curious George. 

My older daughter is in first grade now, and my younger daughter attends preschool at our church for the hours that I’m at school each morning.  Before they were in school and preschool full-time, the girls were cared for by several wonderful sitters in home daycare settings. My husband’s schedule as a museum director is more flexible than my own, so he does the morning school drop-offs and is the usual parent to stay at home when the girls are sick. Our afternoons are fairly unstructured. The girls participate in church choir and gymnastics, but we otherwise spend a lot of time after school riding bikes on the driveway, playing with friends, and enjoying downtime. Errands, cleaning, the grocery store, et cetera are done mostly on weekends, or in snatches of available time during the week. We have always put our kids to bed early at night, and I relish the several hours of “me” time this affords me on most evenings.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? I suppose this is spring for me, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. I feel like I have finally emerged from the often exhausting and isolating winter of having infants and very young preschoolers, and it feels good to be in the warmth and sunshine with children who are a tiny bit less dependent on me for their every need. We are at a stage as a family when it’s possible to do more activities together. No one requires naps or diaper changes these days, and the increased maturity and longer attention spans of our children are allowing us to enjoy lots of fun pastimes and events that were not possible even a year ago. 

Professionally, I have more energy for teaching than I did during my girls’ baby and toddlerhoods. I feel increasingly confident in myself as a teacher, and I love having an opportunity to positively affect the lives of my students by helping them become better readers. In working part-time, I definitely do struggle with the demands and balancing act of teaching and home life. There are days when I feel as if I’m not doing either of my jobs as well as I’d like, but I guess that can be said for most careers!

-What season(s) preceded this one? The season of having two very small children was a difficult one for me. While I loved so many aspects of being present for my girls in their early years, I also experienced the stress of feeling like someone needed something from me nearly every minute of the day (and night!). 

Going from one child to two was a challenge for me as I learned to balance the needs of two kids with my teaching job, and also struggled to find a few moments in the day for myself. I experienced a period of mild postpartum depression following the birth of my second child. She was a fussy, high-needs baby, and so very different from my “easy” first child. It was emotionally painful for me to have a baby whom I often could not comfort. Thankfully, she mellowed considerably as she grew (and medication for reflux also helped), but there were some dark moments for both my husband and myself during the first few months of parenting two children. 

Seasonally speaking, I feel like we were in a period of late fall.  The vibrant, colorful leaves of expectation were off the trees, and the reality of cold winter months set in for us.

-What season(s) might your future hold? In many ways, I feel like the next season is one of uncertainty, though not in a negative sense. I know that I will return to teaching full-time, but I don’t yet know when that will be. My hope has always been to be at home part-time until my children are in school. Suddenly, that time is sooner than later, as my younger daughter will begin kindergarten a year from this fall. The state education budget continues to shrink by the minute, and this is stressful in terms of teacher employment security. Coupled with these factors is the question of whether or not we will have a third child, and how that dynamic (logistically and financially) would affect my teaching plans and our lives as a whole. Despite the uncertainties, I am hopeful and excited about the season to come. We are settled in a town, jobs, schools, and a church that we love, and it feels good to think that we could be in this setting for many years.

favorite family activity/activities: spending time together outdoors (playing in the yard, hiking at local parks, bike rides), involvement in our church, reading together, enjoying the arts and musical opportunities that our town offers

favorite solo activities: photography, reading, blogging and blog-reading, time and connection with friends and family members

sources of inspiration: Professionally, I have a lot of gifted teaching mentors and role models. I’m also inspired by the students I work with at an after-school program for at-risk children. Most of them are first generation Americans and are struggling against a variety of factors to obtain the educations that they hope will give them opportunities in this country and in life. Personally, I’m inspired by other mothers who are honest and brave enough to admit that parenting, while unbelievably wonderful, is also full of moments in which you wonder why you ever got yourself into this madness in the first place!

best MakeShift moment: During the first few months of my younger daughter’s life, she needed to be held/nursed/worn in a sling constantly in order to be somewhat content. By evening on most days, I was at the end of my rope just as she reached her fussiest time of the day. One night, in an act of desperation, I placed the baby, tummy-down, on a towel on the dryer as it was running. Magically, she stopped wailing and settled. From that night on, my husband and I took shifts each evening sitting in the laundry room with our “drying” baby. He read several books, and I mostly sat and enjoyed the hum of the dryer and the absence of crying. After a few nights, we realized it would be safer (though we never left her unsupervised) to place the baby in the laundry basket. There, she cozily enjoyed her hours on the gentle cycle while we cherished a few precious moments of peace and quiet.

[if you know someone who would make a good “mothers of invention” feature, check out the nomination process detailed on the sidebar pages to the right.]

first name: Emma

age: 31