Gaining a MONTH of Quality Time with my Kids:-)

My goal is to have an EXTRA MONTH of quality time with my kids.  Am I going by a new calendar?  Am I taking an extended vacation?  Nope, I'm going to use my income from my new business to simply leave my office 2 hours earlier each day and pick up my kids.  Can I do this tomorrow?  Nope.  Will I do this by the end of this school year?  YES!!  

Everyone always says "Kids grow up so fast.  Enjoy them while they are young because it doesn't last."  Over the past 5 years that has become abundantly clear to me.  There's no way to stop time, so what's the answer?  How can we spend more quality time with our kids??  Being a stay-at-home mother is the answer for some people.  Some can't do this because it isn't a viable financial option.  I personally think I'm a better mom to my kids by having my career.  But as my youngest gets closer and closer to two, I realize that I would like to spend more time with them, especially while they still want to spend time with me!  I don't want to put more of the financial earning responsibility on my husband though, I want him to continue to be able to spend time with the kids too.

Moving to a small town was part of the answer to this dilemma for us.  How big of a difference did that make?  Well, the hour that we used to spend commuting to and from work gives us approximately 11 ADDITIONAL DAYS of time with our kids.  This isn't time spent sleeping, it's real time with our kids in the morning and evening that we were missing out on.  (Here's my rough calculation, 5 day work week so 5/7ths of the 365 days in the year - no I didn't calculate holidays - is  260.7 additional hours a year we get just by eliminating the commute.  260.7/24(hrs in a day) = 10.86.  THIS JUST HIT ME TODAY!!  I spent 11 DAYS more with my kids this past year than I did the year before!!

So after this revelation, I thought you know, I could multiply this.  If I just leave at 4:15 instead of 5:15 that total will be 22 days!!  But who wants to pay for extended day care for just 1 hour a day??  Not me, especially if by leaving the office at 3:15 to pick up my kids after school means that I will literally have an extra MONTH of quality time that I will be spending with them after school - AWESOME!!!  And thank God I figured this out before they hit junior high when after school athletics will cut into our together time!

It's like I've just added another month to the calendar, and the month is dedicated TOTALLY to my kids!  What an amazing feeling:-)  I mean, if you could spend more time with these kids, wouldn't you?!

Thanks Rodan+Fields (shameless plug - I know)

Check out the amazing products:  gayles.myrandf.com

Call me if you want more mommy time too!  830-992-1908