A Year in the Life Series: Busy Mother Leanne's Hectic Month

Last month I introduced you to Leanne Davis. Our busy working mother commutes an hour each way, as does her husband, and lives away from family, which means not getting much help with around the house. (Refresh yourself on Leanne by visiting last month's post). 

This month, Leanne has been busy: and not just with work.

At the beginning of January Leanne's son fell and tripped face first into a toy at his school. He had to be taken to the hospital for stitches. Leanne writes:

As I sat in the emergency room with my son, the physician’s assistant (PA) told me that he was going to kick and scream during the whole process and could I handle it. Without hesitation, I said yes.

I tried to prepare my three-year-old the best way I knew how…described to him over and over again how this was going to play out, telling him that it was going to hurt a little as they numbed his boo-boo. (My mom reminded me later about how she used to described pain levels to us when we were young and I have since used it.) I even pulled out a mirror that was in my purse to show him the boo-boo and the temporary bandage with numbing medicine on it that the nurse applied.

The stitches went in through a lot of struggling, and Leanne remained strong for her son, as we have to do when our children are faced with something difficult. But she writes:

I did not baby Ian and have let him do what little boys do…run, play with cars and trains and run into stuff. I have to turn away and not look at what Ian is doing for fear that we’ll have to go to the emergency room again. I’m sure the day will come, but I hope it isn’t  too soon because I almost cried in the doctor’s office this morning because I wasn’t sure if I prepared him enough. The stress of the whole experience, from beginning to end, has caught up with me. I need to get it out of my system and cry it out, but I can’t relax enough to do so.

It is often difficult to watch our children get hurt, not only because we know the pain they feel but we then begin to worry it might happen again - that, or something worse. (I still recall my daughter launching herself from the top of a flight of stairs. I'm not sure how i got to her in time, but I did, and I caught her before she could bust or break something. Now, however, I'm still scared around stairs, and she is nearly six!)

In addition to the trip to the ER, Leanne is struggling with her son's inability to sleep through the night. He's four months old and still wakes several times. Some nights she lets him cry, but others she wants him back to sleep so she can rest. (How familiar does this sound?!)

In addition, Leanne has had to take her children to the doctor's office recently and she writes:

Started off the week by taking two hours of sick leave to take my four-month-old for his four month doctor visit. I am happy to do so, but it’s hard to take care of doctor visits for yourself and your children when you only have two weeks of sick leave for the year. I took another two hours of sick leave last week when I took my oldest, Ian, to the doctor.

I am fortunate that my husband takes an active part in our children’s lives and that includes taking the kids to the doctor. He drove separately to the doc and then took Ian to school and Heath to our house while I went on to work.

With an hour long commute one way for work, Leanne has to schedule things very strategically in order to take the least amount of time off as is necessary.

Leanne is struggling with time management the way many of us do. How do you fit in everything you have to get done in a day? Since she works out of the home and an hour away from the job, she has additional difficulties. Everything must be running fairly organized in order to get it all done in a specific amount of time.

Keep up with Leanne by checking back next month to see how her February went. In the meantime, I will be posting some tips from our experts on time management that can help all of us as we deal with time management issues.