Q & A With Sluiter Nation

By Tracy Managing Editor

It’s been a while since we’ve done this Q & A thing with working momma bloggers, but we are bringing it back (and hopefully more regularly). Up today is Katie from Sluiter Nation. It’s not often that I find myself reading a blog where I can relate so much. Katie and I are both teachers, and up until last year, we both were high school English teachers. (Now I’m in middle school while Katie has moved to teaching Spanish.) Because of this, there are no words needed between us. We totally get what it takes to be working teacher mommas. So of course I wanted a glance inside her mind, especially since she’s expecting baby #2, and well, I’m all sorts of intrigued as to how to make being a working teacher momma with two work. And really, it’s always great to hear from a working momma in general, you know, to glean insights on how to make this gig run a bit smoother for me.

When Eddie and Charlie are grown up, what do you want them to remember about you being their working momma, and any other additional kids you may have?

When I was growing up, my mom stayed at home until I was in 6^th grade (my younger brother was in 3^rd and my baby brother was just a wee tot).  She still made time to be a room mother for them, go on field trips with me, and do all sorts of things that she did when she was a SAHM.  I always looked up to my mom as being a successful, strong woman.

That is what I hope for my boys (and any future kids).  That they will remember me not as someone who always had things together, but as someone who knew what she wanted out of life and went for it.  Mistakes and all.  And talked about those mistakes.  I want them to know that work was never put before them or their dad, but that I loved my work fiercely.

What are some key parts of your work week routine that make things go as smooth as possible.

My husband!  You think I am joking, but without Cort, things are such a cluster fark.  Seriously. Because the school where I work starts at 7:30am and is a good 35 minute commute (in good weather…remember, I live in Michigan where the winters and construction take over 80% of the year), I get up and leave before Eddie is even out of bed.  Cort does the morning routine of getting him up and to daycare.

After work, I usually do pick up and then Eddie and I get home and start dinner since we get home by 4:30pm and Cort isn’t home until 5:00pm.

Then later, I read books, and Cort does rocking/putting to bed.

It’s definitely a shared routine in our house.  One that is all comfy and wonderful and sure to be upset when Charlie shows up on the scene!

What is one piece of advice you have to expecting working mommas?

SLOW DOWN.  No, really.  Slow down.  You honestly can’t do everything you did before. You are growing a human.  The first time around when I was pregnant with Eddie, I tried to not only keep up my normal pace with work and life, but I tried to do MORE.  Dumb, dumb, DUMB.  I was swollen and crabby and tired.

This time around, I let go of many of my “extra” duties as a teacher.  Knowing we were trying to get pregnant last school year already, I quit my duty as Senior Class Advisor and I stepped down from helping with state test scheduling.  I also put my Community College Adjunct position on hold indefinitely.

Could we use that money?  Oh in a BIG way.  Is it worth the strain on me and my family?  No.

Slow down, momma.  You and your family need you to be healthy and happy.

What’s the hardest part for you as a working mom?

The Mommy Guilt.  I am really a better mother to my son when we are apart for part of the day.  We are so much alike and both have such strong personalities, that when we are apart?  Our together time is so sweet.  But knowing that I can’t just “mother” my kid all day every day and feel successful makes me feel guilty.

I miss him when I am at work, yet I know that that will make me be awesome and patient that night at home.  That is the rub, ya know?  Needing to be away and miss him in order to feel like a good mom.  Which in turn makes me feel rotten.

What is a rewarding part for you as a working mom?

Being a role model to my students.  Before becoming a mom, I loved my job.  But now that I am someone’s Mommy, I look at my students so much differently.  They are someone’s baby boy or girl.  Their parents/guardians trust every day that they adults in their student’s life will be a positive influence.

That is a huge responsibility.  And as a mom, I want my students to feel love and accepted and safe, but also challenged and tested.

I have so many students from homes with one or no parents.  With siblings who are YEARS younger because they were born when their mom was a teenager.  With no one to give them boundaries or rules.

I strive to be that to my students.

Many tell me that I like a mom to them.  And many joke that my son is in big trouble having a mom as strict as me (I do NOT think I am THAT strict).  But I think they love it.

And sharing my mother-ness with other people’s kids, well, that is awesome.

Is your school family friendly? How so? Like for me, we had conferences at night and my husband had to work, and I was able to bring Abby with me and have someone help out watching…is your high school like that?

My principal always tells us that our first priority MUST be our family.  He would rather me skip conferences and be home with my son than bring a two-year old who will not have fun to something like conferences.  Or he would help me find a student to watch Eddie while I did conferences.

So yes.  Cort’s work is also VERY family-oriented.  We are very blessed this way.

How do you balance…ahem…try to balance (who really has balance) the demands of your job, the demands of your blog, and the demands of being a momma and wife?

I have a MomAgenda.  I know that sounds like a plug, but it’s not.  I don’t work with them at all, I just really love the product.  So being organized is one way.

My other way is to really sit down and decide what is worth my time.

As far as my blogging, I have cut way back since becoming pregnant.  I used to be an editor at Write on Edge and work with the social media promotion area of Studio 30 Plus, but I quit both because they were too much time.  With working, I had to choose my family before those blogging ventures.

I think I lose out on a lot of great opportunities in the blogging world because I just don’t have time as a working mom, but on the other hand, I don’t know how great they would be if they made me lose sleep to meet deadlines or miss out on reading books with Eddie at bedtime.

So I always choose family time and my health first, then work, then blogging/writing.

How does Cort support you? I know that for me I feel like I have to do it all…bring home the bacon and cook it, but I know I can’t do it all the time, or else my brain would explode.

He CONSTANTLY is asking, “how can I help?” and “what can I do?”  Because of my history with PPD/A and depression, he is very good about watching for my signs of frustration and anxiety.  He does bath time because he knows that bending with this pregnant belly is hard for me.

He hired his cousin as a cleaning lady because he knows a messy house bothers me, but that I often don’t have the energy or the time to do a good cleaning of the house.

He does the laundry lately so I don’t have to go up and down stairs.

And he is very observant about when it’s time for Eddie and I to be apart for a bit.

Plus he cooks up dinner about once or twice a week so I can either play with Eddie or relax or blog.

What are some important things you make time for…that elusive “me time” that we seem to forget about once baby arrives?

Sleeping.  Cort and I both know that one of my anxiety triggers is lack of sleep, so he works very hard to make sure I go to bed by 9:00ish pm during the work week right now.  And once Charlie is here, he is very good about sharing night time “get up” duties.

I also need time just alone.  I am an introvert in the sense that I need quiet and alone time to recharge and be sociable again.  It’s important that every once in a while I get some time where I don’t have to listen to a toddler whining or a baby screaming.  Where I can just…be.

How will having second baby, Charlie, impact your working mom routine? Are you scared? Are you overthinking it? (I’m not even pregnant with number 2 but I’m constantly thinking about how things might be as a busy working teacher momma with two kiddos.)

I go through phases.  Sometimes I freak out.  Like when Eddie is having a hard time sleeping, so I curl up on the floor next to his crib.  We lay there in silence and I look around the nursery and get weepy that my little boy will be moving to a big boy room in the basement soon.  And how we will have a new little guy who can’t put on his own coat and get a diaper for me and…and…

But with Cort, my docs, and my therapist, we have already discussed our “plan” for a “routine” when Charlie is here to minimize my PPD/A this time around.

Eddie is going to go to daycare fulltime even while I am on my maternity leave.  And that will bring us to the summer.  We are expecting to send Eddie one maybe two mornings a week to daycare in the summer, and possibly send Charlie one of those mornings too in order to give me a break.

But mostly, we will see how things go as they come.  I will be off work starting March 9 and I don’t go back until the end of August, when school starts up again, so I am going to use that time to really find a new routine.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

I always thought that I would rather be a Stay at Home Mom.  Really.  I thought it came with the territory of becoming a mom—that I would want to be at home all the time with my kids.

And when I realized that I am a better wife and mother when I am working and pursuing the goals I set for myself as a professional way back as a teenager, I crumbled.

I felt selfish.

I felt…like a fail.

But the reality is, I am not a fail.  I am an awesome mom to Eddie and I will be to Charlie too.  Eddie LOVES daycare and his daycare mom and the kids.

He gets the creativity, interaction, and one-on-one that I can’t give him…even if we were home just the two of us…because it’s not my personality or strength.

And when we are together?  We rock the fun.  We rock the inappropriate giggles.  We rock the love.

We just rock.

We don’t do it your way or your way or their way or the way any book says.

We get through our own way…and I think that is the most important thing about being a working mom. Finding your own way.  And rocking it.

Make sure to check out more of what Katie has to say over at Sluiter Nation.