The Working Mom's Guide to Summer Survival

Summer vacation: hooray!....and ugh. When my stay-at-home mom friends talk about how great summer is because there is no schedule and they can just relax, I smile and nod but inside I'm a mess of mom guilt. When I think summer I think, "How am I going to get my work done?" I don't want the kids to have to sit around and "be good" while I work and their friends go to the beach but realistically, I run two small businesses that both tend toward the "when it rains it pours" variety. And while I am beyond grateful to be able to work two jobs that I love at home, I've had to make a few adjustments in my schedule to make a day at the beach, or even an impromptu 3-hour game of Monopoly, a priority.

Janet's Summer Time Management Tips
The crockpot is your friend. Chili and spaghetti are two kid favorites that are easy to make in the crockpot. Start them in the morning before the kids get up and you can cross dinner off your to-do list.

5-minute family clean up. You all know that picking up the house is an endless chore, but family clean up time has done wonders for my sanity. Once a day (usually after dinner) I delegate the rooms (little guy and Dad in the living room, the two big kids in the family room, and I'll take the downstairs bathroom and kitchen counters) and set the oven timer for 5 minutes. When I yell "Go!" we all put away stuff as fast as we can and stop the moment the buzzer sounds. OK, so I do it as fast as I can and everyone else takes their sweet time. Still, by the end of 5 minutes, the mail is usually sorted, bathroom mirror is wiped down, and most stuff has been thrown in closets (that's a project for another day), and we can relax in a semi-clean living area.

Get up early/go to bed late. Believe you me, I have tried every alternative before resorting to this. I am neither a night owl nor an early bird--I like to go to bed early and sleep late but that's not really working for me lately. I have started setting the alarm clock to ring at least two hours before the first kid gets up in order to get a jump start on work so when little Mr. Sleepyhead stumbles downstairs, climbs onto my lap, and says, "HHHHHHello Mom" with his terrible morning breath, I am genuinely happy to greet him.


Move the computer out of your main living area. When I bought a laptop, I got into the bad habit of bringing it down to the kitchen so I could check my email every 45 seconds to see if I got an order from my Etsy shop. This has turned into a borderline obsession, so I moved my computer back upstairs into the office. When the kids get up, I set it to hibernate and then don't check it again until after lunch, when I let the kids play a video game or watch a TV show for an hour or so while I reply to emails and work a little. After Vince comes home from work, I disappear for a little while again to check emails and work some more, and then get the rest of the day's work done when the kids are asleep.

Lunches. If you read this blog regularly, you've heard me complain about feeding children in the summer, children who are never hungry at the same time and never want the same thing. I was longing for the days when I would pack a lunch and send them out the door, and not having to think about food for the next 6 hours, when a bolt of lightning struck. Why can't I pack lunches in the summer as well? So the night before, I do the regular chips/sandwich/fruit thing and label the bags with their names. When they're hungry, I direct them to the frig and I'm done. Summer gives us some good options, like packing a salad for Elise who's a vegetarian and gets pretty sick of cheese and crackers during the school year. I can even box up leftovers that wouldn't last half a day in a backpack, and if I have to warm them up in the microwave, it's a piece of cake.


Prioritize the work. I've gone from a really well organized planner (December birthday party--check!) to working under a "what needs to be done today" mentality, which very often turns into "what needed to be done today but I can technically get away with doing tomorrow." It is a little Scarlett O'Hara but it's just until fall, right?

If I said these tips have made my summer completely carefree I'd be lying, but incorporating them has given me some sense of control over the day, which helps my attitude, which helps my patience level, which results in me being a nicer mom with happier kids.

Down the Drain (Or Maybe Not)

I have a confession to make: I floss and brush my teeth in the shower. I do it because I really really really love long hot showers but don't like to waste water, so I figure if something is getting done while I'm standing there, it's OK. (Man, that excuse sounded so much better in my head.)

So a couple of months ago I noticed that there was a long strand of floss that had caught on the shower drain. It had wrapped itself around the grate and the ends were hanging down into the pipe. I pulled it out so it wouldn't wash away and when I did, about two heads' worth of hair came with it. It was completely gross, yet so oddly satisfying, like pouring out a bucketful of black water after shampooing the carpet (I swear they put black dye in that machine).

I replaced the floss with another strand, this time making it really long and tying it in a knot on the grate so it wouldn't accidently wash down the pipe and collect all that hair underground. Works like a charm, and now we can cancel my daughter's buzz cut appointment and let her keep her long (see photo above) beautiful hair.

Confessions of an Emergency Cleaner

My husband calls me an Emergency Cleaner. When I hang up the phone and immediately start throwing things in closets and stuffing the dishes into the oven, his eyes roll. A friend once summed up the difference between men and women like this: “When the doorbell rings unexpectedly, a woman immediately thinks about the cleanliness of her house. A man wonders who is on the other side of the door.”

Once a friend’s home security alarm went off while she was out, and the police department came and searched her home for intruders. When she found out, her first reaction was, “Thank goodness the house was clean.” Ever since then, I clean using this method: Imagine someone walking through your house and assess the level of grossness they will experience.

Priority number one: Areas where waste is produced (by man or beast). This includes bathrooms, litter boxes, and piles on the back lawn. Do these first.

Priority number two: Anything rotten or heading in that direction. This includes the frig, sink, and kitchen in general. Laundry may fall into this category.

Priority number three: Floors. You can have papers and toys thrown everywhere, but if your guest looks down at a spotless floor, she’ll never think you’re a real slob.

Priority number four: Clutter, aka “Am I the ONLY one around here that picks anything up?” I had to really stop and think about the amount of complaining I do in this department when my 6-year-old was learning about Abraham Lincoln in school and defined a slave as “when your mom has to pick things up because you’re too lazy to do it yourself.”

Priority number five: Dust and general grime such as marks on the wall and fingerprints on doors. Get real. That’s what kids on summer vacation are for. Flopping on the couch for 10 minutes is way more important to your well-being than this. Don’t bother. Your friends couldn’t care less.

Be Green When You Clean

On my continuing quest to reduce the amount of chemicals that enter my family's home and bodies, I embarked on an Internet hunt for a good homemade spray cleaner recipe. The one I settled on was this one, by Sophie Uliano from her book, Gorgeously Green: 8 Simple Steps to an Earth-Friendly Life.

It works great, and smells good too. You'll later come home to an "I cleaned" smell, which feels nearly as good as seeing vacuum lines on your carpet.

I'm considering giving spray bottles of this stuff to neighbors with jingle bells around it instead of cookies this Christmas.

Gorgeously Green All-Purpose Spray

32-oz. plastics spray bottle
2 cups water
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon pure castile soap (I use Dr. Bronner's peppermint, found in my local natural foods grocery store)
3/4 cup hydrogen peroxide
20 drops tea tree oil
20 drops lavender or lemongrass essential oil

Mix together all ingredients in your spray bottle. Add 10 drops of citronella oil as an insect repellent when ants may be a problem.

Spray can be used on acrylic, ceramic tile, wood, marble, and granite.