My Current Routine as a Work From Home Mom of 2
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Working from home with littles is not easy & your routines are ever changing. Today, Victoria shares her current routine in this specific season of life. Starting from the moment she wakes up until when she goes to bed at night, everything is covered that happens during the course of the day.
Victoria dives into how she splits her week up with days that she’s all business versus days that she’s in full mom mode. She shares her fitness routine and how that fits into her days, including her new concept of “Work Walks”.
Finding the balance between motherhood and entrepreneurship is difficult, but by having good rhythms, routines, and help from a nanny or family, it can all be possible. Being a parent is all about being adaptable and recognizing that somebody else is going to dictate your schedule, but it’s all worth it to be a mom. So, join Victoria for a peek behind the curtain and a look into what her life looks like with being a work from home mom of two.
Work Walks [01:20]
Recently, Victoria began including “Work Walks” into her routine. To her, a Work Walk is when you grab your phone, go for a walk outside (or on a treadmill), set a manageable pace, and you knock out your emails, brainstorm ideas for podcast topics or blog posts, etc. Basically the Work Walk is a time where you can exercise but also be getting work done.
A word of encouragement [2:26]
If you are in a season of life where you have little ones and you’re trying to manage a business, know that it’s hard. There is no magic formula to being a working mom. Victoria has been a mom for almost four years and she’s been an entrepreneur for a little over five years, and she admits that it’s a tough balance! However, she has found good rhythms that she’s put in place and changed her mindset on some things and that is what she plans on sharing with you today.
Monday’s [3:31]
On Monday’s, Victoria is home all day with her three and a half year old and her one and a half year old. Being that it’s the first day of a typical work week, her inbox is usually pretty full, some of which are urgent. It could be several hours before she was able to tackle her inbox and this always would leave Victoria feeling flustered and not present with her girls, knowing that things were waiting for her. To solve this dilemma, Victoria realized that she could wake up early and respond to emails before the girls even woke up. Insert the “Work Walk”. On Monday mornings, Victoria wakes up a bit before five, jumps on the treadmill, and walks while going through her inbox and handling the urgent things.
Once the girls are awake, Victoria is in full mom-mode. They love to stay home on Mondays and have a lazy day, play with toys, or go outside on the swingset to play. Victoria is also the stereotypical mom who loves to get her kids dressed, loaded up into the car, and go to Starbucks and maybe even Target. They also have memberships to different places in downtown Lynchburg. There’s a museum called Amazement Square, which is four stories of fun for kids. There's also SeaQuest which is like an indoor aquarium and zoo.
Around noon they have their lunch and then it becomes nap time/quiet time for the girls.
Quiet Time Reality [13:37]
Quick note to you if you do quiet time with your toddler. This is not perfect. It’s easy to think of quiet time where the kid just sits in the room quietly, reads a book or plays with their toys, but that’s not at all what it actually looks like. For Maya, Victoria’s oldest, quiet time looks like Victoria putting her in her bedroom with a few books, hoping she’ll take a nap, and sometimes Victoria will let Maya go into their playroom and play in there. About every 10 minutes or so, Maya will go to the top of the stairs and ask if it’s time to come down and end the quiet time. SO, it’s not perfect. For Victoria, this means that she can’t schedule important meetings or podcast interviews during this window anymore because there’s never a guarantee that everyone’s going to nap or be quiet.
Monday Continued [15:06]
The moment the girls are having quiet time or napping, Victoria will make herself her second coffee, sit down at her desk, and check in with her team. Then, if it’s a payroll week, she’ll run payroll using Square payroll, and that’s about it for work tasks. Occasionally, if she can, she’ll jump on BrandWell’s weekly team meeting, but she doesn’t put too much pressure on making that meeting every single week.
The girls will nap between 12 and 2pm or 1pm to 3pm. When they wake up, they all spend their afternoons meeting up with friends at a park, or running errands, and Victoria will also use this time to tidy up the house while the girls play together.
James usually gets home around five o’clock and if there’s something that’s pretty urgent, Victoria will then slip away to her office, otherwise, they all spend time together as a family. They’ll have dinner together, and then it’s time to start the bedtime routine.
Bedtime Routine [21:12]
Around seven o’clock, the bedtime routine begins. Victoria and her husband, James, tag team and they each take a kid. Maya clings to Victoria and so often James puts Reagan to bed and Victoria puts Maya to bed. They’ll go upstairs, brush their teeth, take a bath, go to the bathroom, and then head into bed. Victoria will typically read Maya two books or so, sing a few songs, and then go. Recently, Maya’s routine has ended up with her and Victoria chit chatting instead of reading and singing. About once or twice a week, Victoria and James switch so Victoria gets some time with Reagan too.
Once the girls are in bed, Victoria and James have a couple hours to spend together. Their current routine is to make a Ninja Creami every night, as they are trying to perfect a lower calorie, high protein ice cream recipe. Sometimes they’ll go work on their basement remodel. Both of them are usually in bed by ten o’clock where they will drift off to sleep listening to a TV show. A few favorites include Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Office, and Parks and Rec.
Tuesdays and Thursdays [24:24]
These are the days where Victoria has childcare, and the routine for these days look pretty similar. On these days they have to be out of the house by 7:15am to get Maya to preschool by 8 o’clock. A nanny meets Victoria at her house at 9 o’clock to watch Reagan, and Victoria is able to work in her office, take any podcast interviews, meetings, sales calls, etc. Her nanny is there for about five hours, so Victoria has about 10 hours of uninterrupted time per week to get things done. This is why Victoria has gotten really good about delegating and being really strict with her boundaries and what she says “yes” to. She is protective of those 10 hours each week and with what she uses to fill it.
When her nanny leaves, Victoria and Reagan go to pick up Maya from school, stop at a fun playground on their way home, and then grab dinner out or have a crock-pot meal.
Wednesdays and Fridays [28:16]
These days are also pretty comparable to Mondays, although Victoria doesn’t wake up before five am. On these mornings, Victoria will wake up at five thirty, make a cup of coffee and enjoy her quiet time. This is when she will read her Bible, pray, and sit there to think about her day. This time is sacred to her, and she encourages you to also carve out a little bit of sacred space for yourself to breathe and have a full thought.
The girls will wake up around six fifteen, and they all snuggle while watching a cartoon in bed, and then around eight thirty, they’ll get ready for the day. They’ll head to the gym, grab coffee, run any errands, and go back home. There they’ll eat lunch, play a little, and have nap time/quiet time/work time. In the afternoons, they will run errands, tidy up the house, play with friends at a park, etc.
Fitness Routine [30:10]
Mondays = Treadmill walk in the basement (Work Walk)
Tuesdays = Rest Day
Wednesdays = Gym Day with the Girls
Thursdays = Group Fitness
Fridays = Gym Day with the Girls
Saturday and Sunday = James and Victoria take shifts going to the gym and watching the girls
Extra help [33:25]
It’s so helpful to have somebody, your husband, your mom, your sister, or whoever you can rely on to fill in the gaps when life is happening and you just need a little extra help. Kudos to you moms out there that don’t have any form of childcare and you’re solely running the nighttime hustle. That’s tough. Victoria’s biggest takeaway from this episode is that she has a lot of help to do all the things. She has people on her team and has been really intentional about hiring the right people, and that has been the biggest blessing in her journey of working motherhood. Because of it, she’s been able to show up and be the mom she wants to be.
Weekends [36:54]
As a family, they lay low. In this stage of life, it’s a lot harder to do adventurous things, but Maya typically has some sort of sport to do in the mornings. They go to church every Sunday, and Victoria and James go to the gym. Other than that, they just have a fun family weekend and enjoy being a close family unit. Victoria tries not to work on weekends and protects the weekends to be together as a family.
Last thoughts [37:59]
If something is chronically stressing you out, rather than becoming bitter about it or feeling like, “oh, my life is so hard”, just ask yourself what can I do differently next time? For example, Monday’s were really stressful for Victoria and she felt scatterbrained when with her kids, so she asked herself “what can I do differently?”. Now she wakes up an hour earlier and handles things that need to be done before her kids even wake up. So here’s your challenge, if there’s something about your current routine that’s leaving you feeling stressed out or frazzled, or like you can never get it all done, ask yourself, “can I do something differently next time?”. Figure out what you’re going to do, try it out, see if it works, and if it doesn’t you can always adapt and change for next time. That’s what being a parent is all about. Being adaptable and recognizing that for 18 years, somebody else is going to heavily dictate your schedule and that’s okay because it’s a joy being a mom.
Key Quotes
“I want to make sure I respect those days when I'm home with my kids and I'm giving them my undivided attention.”
Victoria Marcouillier
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