Mom + Business Owner: Where Does One End and the Other Begin?

So I sat down to write this blog post, and I was going to write about love languages. But you know what? The words just wouldn’t come out. They’re stuck in my brain somewhere between “finish editing photo session”, “write email about styled shoot”, “sign Beckett up for Kindermusik” and “make brow wax appointment before you have a unibrow”.  My brain is a mumbly jumbly mess of mush. I mean, is that even a thing? I’m not sure, but it is to me right now so let’s just go with it, cool?

I’m quickly coming to the realization that being a stay-at-home mom and photographer is both the best thing in the world and the hardest thing in the world. The to-do list in my brain is this mixture of MOM and BUSINESS OWNER. I’m in this constant flow between the two. I can’t tell you where one ends and the other one begins. Sometimes Mom is 100 percent Mom and gives Beckett her full attention. And then honestly? Sometimes she’s 50 percent Mom and 50 percent business owner. She replies to an email or posts a Facebook update while looking up every five seconds to make sure Beckett isn’t trying to climb the stairs again. And then sometimes she’s 100 percent business owner and gives her photography business her full attention. 

Let me be clear. This IS the life I signed up for. This IS the life I believe I should be leading. This IS what I wanted. I am not complaining. I am keeping it real, though. I’m telling you it’s not a freaking bowl full of cherries everyday. I’m not floating around in some glamorous fairy tale Pinterest life. I’m really just running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I’m trying to figure out how to balance it all. Where there’s a will, there is definitely a way, but I need to figure out what that way is.

The first item on my “figuring it out” to-do list is time management. I’ll be the first to admit that this is not my forte. Beckett goes down for a nap, and I’m like “Ok, I’m just going to scroll Instagram for like 5 minutes before I do anything else.” And sometimes that’s ok. But most of the time? Most of the time it’s not. Most of the time there’s a to-do list a mile long of tasks I should be completing. Earlier this week I made an actual to-do list and made it a point to complete everything during Beckett’s nap time. Can I just tell you how good it felt to to knock one task off of that list after another? Tasks that had been hanging over my head for weeks were finally marked off of my list. IT FELT SO GOOD, YOU GUYS. 

I know that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right now. So for me, there’s no “giving up photography” option. My one option is figuring it out, and that’s exactly what I intend to do. And I intend to do it with a BIG smile on my face the whole time, because this, my friends… this is THE DREAM.