{"id":414,"date":"2013-07-06T18:54:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-06T18:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/2013-07-06-staying-home\/"},"modified":"2013-07-06T18:54:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-06T18:54:59","slug":"2013-07-06-staying-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/2013\/07\/06\/2013-07-06-staying-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m now heading into well over one month as a stay-at-home parent. I don&#8217;t want to comment on whether it&#8217;s going well or not, but here are some things I&#8217;ve noticed.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I generally love it. And Alya seems to as well.<\/li>\n<li>Not setting an alarm clock = totally wonderful<\/li>\n<li>Not having to make\/pack lunches + a bag of baby stuff for the day = wonderful too<\/li>\n<li>Not stressing out about work situations = a welcome relief after many months of hard work<\/li>\n<li>Figuring out how to fill the days = sometimes still a challenge, sometimes magically easy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I still want to have a general structure to our days. We don&#8217;t. I expect I&#8217;ll be working again at some point, so maybe I just haven&#8217;t taken the time to create the home schedule I know we would enjoy. Or maybe I&#8217;m just lazy. Or obsessed with my still-long to-do list. Or maybe, schedules are over-rated. In any case, our days look like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wake up when we want to, often around 8.<\/li>\n<li>Get breakfast &#8230; eventually.<\/li>\n<li>Read, nurse, play, some crafts.<\/li>\n<li>Eventually (usually) leave the house. Maybe the park, library, groceries &#8230; Some days lately we&#8217;ll end up out for most of the day once we leave.<\/li>\n<li>Very occasional visits with friends. Not often enough.<\/li>\n<li>Bedtime varying from 5:30 &#8211; midnight; naps sometimes.<\/li>\n<li>Lots of books. Loooooooots.<\/li>\n<li>And not enough cooking. I&#8217;m hungry and she eats too much bread.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I do try to engage her in what I&#8217;m doing, but sometimes she&#8217;s not interested, and sometimes I&#8217;m just not doing much.<\/p>\n<p>And finally: fitting in other work while looking after a child is very hard, and possibly counter-productive. I sometimes try to get small tasks done, check email, etc. Maybe it&#8217;s because she is still readjusting to having me home, but I don&#8217;t get much time to myself (1 minute? sometimes more if she&#8217;s absorbed in something &amp; I&#8217;m beside her). Getting tasky also detracts significantly from our bonding, and when I get out of the &#8220;being home&#8221; headspace, I&#8217;m more irritable and enjoy her less. Is the lesson to embrace what I&#8217;m doing when I&#8217;m doing it?<\/p>\n<p>I am intensely curious to hear how other people organize their at-home days. Do you fit in other work? Multitask? Play a lot with your child or encourage independence? Set up activities &amp; preschool-like work? Get out a lot and play with other kids?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m now heading into well over one month as a stay-at-home parent. I don&#8217;t want to comment on whether it&#8217;s going well or not, but here are some things I&#8217;ve noticed. I generally love it. And Alya seems to as well. Not setting an alarm clock = totally wonderful Not having to make\/pack lunches + [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kamillamilligan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}