My husband and I both work 9-hr days, and last spring, he coached our son’s baseball team and I coached my daughter’s cheerleading squad. TWENTY 7-10-yr-olds, I might add. When we weren’t at cheerleading practice, we were at baseball, or they were at AWANA on Wed nights, or at a game, or at a competition. My head was SPINNING and I was exhausted.

I found out, a few months later, that I was also severely anemic during that time–so much so that I required 8 weeks’ worth of iron infusions at the outpatient center (IV infusions). No wonder I always felt so bad! I thought it was simply from dealing with twenty obnoxious divas, three times a week. (Though surely that didn’t HELP.)

Now? My husband still coaches but we took a big break from cheer. My daughter takes one night a week of dance and that’s IT. That’s enough! We don’t get home til after 6pm each night anyway, so we couldn’t really do more.

Thank goodness I at least work for the gov’t so I can take off for doctor/dentist appts as often as needed.

I do wonder how a lot of people do it! We know tons of people with CRAZY schedules ALL THE TIME and I don’t envy them a bit.

Alas, he is not interested in quitting his job. And neither am I.

I’ve been a SINGLE MOM for 10 years, although my daughter is 15 now, and we just make it work. I can’t tell you how, it just works. And it does NOT get easier as they get older. She’s in the band (2 instruments, 1 w/ private lessons), runs track, cheerleading, HS magazine editor, and an active Delta GEM member. Most of this is seasonal so it isn’t everything all at once, but it consumes her day. I work full time (40+ hrs), write freelance, and have an active personal life. I love it! I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.

You all must need some vitamins or something. LOL

1) One of you has to have either flexibility at work or stability… My husband has some flexibility,he can on occasion work from home when the basement floods or the roof leaks (both on Sunday night!) or the dog swallows a corncob and needs emergency surgery. I ended up at a union shop which means while I have to be there 8-4? I can go home at 4. When we both were doing 24-7 pager support, it was horrible and beyond stressful and I still can’t really talk about how horrific it was.

2) Reliable child care
I love my sitter. She takes my kids, with her kids, to the skating rink one night a week so that we can participate in that learn to skate program. I could not do it without her. She gets my oldest on and off the bus, make sure her snowpants are dry and warms everyones coats and boots by the woodstove in the morning before they go out to wait for the bus. She takes them to the library and helps them pick out books. I cannot say how much this woman means to our family.

3) Not committing to too much.
We don’t do more than 2 nights of activities a week because that is all my brain can handle.

4) Not expecting too much from one another.
My husbands job, while it has some flexiblity, also means he is on the road 1 week out of 4 and potentially at work late 3 nights out of 5. He cannot logisitcally help me get the kids to activities or appointments. That is my problem. Therefore, I commit to no more than I know I can handle, and I cannot begrudge him the pressures he feels from work. He also must acknowledge that in an emergency, it is much more difficult for me to “slip away” than he, because of the union rules. So we juggle things that way.

After bed (7:30 or so) we clean up from dinner and do a load of laundry. The load a day here is KEY to my routine – this way I never have to waste weekend time on laundry. He walks the treadmill while I prep dinner for the next night. Then we might get an hour of tv/couch time before we hit the sack.

Three things are key – dinner menus for the week, errands during lunch and doing laundry every night. If those things don’t happen it makes me grumpy because that means less family time on the weekends. Weekends for the most part are devoted to being nothing-scheduled family time with maybe a few household projects thrown in. Finally, someone to clean the house once a week is a must.