Reading the news about Somer Thompson’s death drives me a little nuts. It’s not so much the coverage; such a death is rare enough that the media tends to go wild with coverage on it. The scare tactics they use on parents along with it are somewhat annoying, of course.

But what drives me most nuts are the comments people are aiming at her mother, criticizing her for working outside the home. Like there’s much of a choice for a single mom. We can’t all work at home, even when we want to.

These critics of the mother have this attitude that the mother’s place is in the home.

A mother’s place is not in the home. A mother’s place is where she can do the best job for her family.

For single moms, that most often means working outside the home. That’s also often true for married moms. Being at home with the kids, whether we have a job or a business or are home for the kids, is a luxury we can’t all manage.

I also do not believe she was foolish for letting her children walk home from school. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was walking home without parents much younger than that. Most children who walk home from school, even without parents or other children will be just fine.

No, the world is not a safe place. More children die in car accidents than from abductions every year. Children even get abducted from their own homes with their parents at home. It’s tragic, but not every tragedy can be prevented. It’s called life!

My heart aches for her entire family. It’s a nightmare that no family should have to live through. Let’s save the blame for the one who killed her, not the people who loved her.

Like many people, my big reason for starting to work at home in the first place was to be there for my kids. With three of them now, that reason only gets more important.

But I have to admit, dealing with a baby when I want to get work done is not easy. It’s been really tough lately to come up with enough hours to get even the minimum amount of work done I’d like to. Especially as she gets older, more mobile and more demanding.

Time was when I could sit her on my lap and still get a little bit done. That’s not quite so simple now. She’s bigger and much more interested in my keyboard and anything she can reach on my desk. Especially if it can go in her mouth.

Yeah. I pretty much need her naptimes to get anything done. And it’s still not easy many days then, as she’s not exactly a champion of sleeping through the night. Thank goodness I don’t have to drive to work that tired.

This is one of the times that it takes incredible dedication to keep going. Believe me, it would be much easier to just take off, but that’s not what I’m going to do, and if you’re in a similar situation, not what I’d recommend either.

When daytime naptimes don’t work for me, working at night after all the kids are in bed can. Other work at home parents prefer early, early mornings, a thought which gives me the chills. Really, really not for me!

But you do what works for you.

Work early in the morning. Late at night. During baby’s nap. When there’s another adult available to watch the kids.

You can even hire a “Mother’s (or Father’s) Helper” to just play with the baby as you work. I did this when I was a medical transcriptionist, and it was pretty helpful. You don’t even need your helper able to feed the baby or change diapers. Just play with the baby and let you know when something more is needed. Older siblings (where available) can also help.

I like to remind myself that this won’t last forever. That means enjoying this time with a baby and not letting it get me down too much just for being tired. And if the price for not losing a post to a baby pounding a keyboard is a little less sleep, so be it.

Moving is hard on children, especially when they’re leaving their friends. It’s been interesting with this move seeing how each of my kids reacts.

My oldest is the most upset. She has the most friends, after all. She finally broke down the other night, crying, and talked about her concerns.

Fortunately, she quickly got to the point where she realized that she might just love our new home. If my husband can get a transfer back to the San Diego area when he’s qualified in a year, we might just do that, and she realized that she would probably be sad to leave her new friends.

My son is insisting that he’s not sad about it, but is decidedly fussier right now. Pretty typical stressed out four year old kind of behaviors.

And of course the baby just knows that she wants Mommy’s attention. She’s too young to know more than that I’m busier than usual and don’t play as much as she’d like.

For the older two, we’ve been talking to them a lot about why we’re moving and what they can expect. It really helped my oldest when we told her about all the kids we saw in the neighborhood just driving around.  Definitely a nice young neighborhood, which will help.

We’re also driving her nuts by giving her just about any detail about the house except whether it’s one or two story. She badly wants a two story home, so we’re keeping that as a surprise for her. It makes her mad, but should make her first sight of the new home very exciting.

We’re lucky to have local, retired grandparents to take the kids. I’m trying to have them gone most of this week, as we have a lot of stuff packed up. They really hate being told “sorry, that toy has been packed already.” Much better for them to be having fun with grandparents than to be underfoot all day.

They have helped with some of the packing, plus some toy sorting for things that they’re willing to get rid of. It’s a great time for getting rid of at least some of the excess toys!

Letting the kids be involved can slow things down tremendously, but it also helps them. It’s not just something that Mommy and Daddy are doing. It’s something the family is doing together.

Here goes. I get to be the sole parent in charge all day. My husband is off at his new job and I get to do it all even more so than usual.

Some ways, it’s not so different from other times. It’s been a while since I’ve consistently been the only one to put the kids to bed, and my oldest in particular is rather emotional about not having Daddy home for a few days. My son says he’s not going to be sad about it, but we’ll see. That’s easy to say at first, after all.

And we’ll see how much the baby notices. They do, after all. If nothing else, there will be cues for her with how everyone else is acting.

But I’m used to being the one in charge all day, so that part isn’t going to be so difficult. I’m planning lots of play time for my kids with their friends that we will be moving away from. Trying to get what work of my own done that I can. Trying to find a home to move into up there.

And sleep. I know there’s time to sleep in there.

Really.

Despite the baby’s best attempts to keep me up some nights.

Sometimes I do my best work when things get crazy in my life. There’s just no time to goof off, and I know it. If I work at things, this might just be a help rather than a complete hindrance.

Kids will catch you off guard sometimes. We were at the store the other day buying toothpaste, when my oldest daughter grabs a pack of colorful flossers off the shelf and starts begging me to buy them.

She’s begging me to buy dental floss? Are you kidding me?

Of course I bought them. I’m not sure someone didn’t switch kids on me for a minute there, though.

These are the Dentek flossers, and they’re… adequate. My kids really haven’t had trouble with them, and it’s nice seeing them want to brush their teeth. I don’t like them for myself, though. They loosen up too easily.

It’s fun seeing them debating which color to use, rather than putting up a fuss over having to floss.

There are some other really nice looking kid’s flossers over on Amazon I think I’ll check out when these run out, though. I want to keep encouraging such a healthy habit.