Some Practicalities of WAHMing

Ok, I thought it was time for some more cute photos, and they don't come much cuter than my little girl.

So, the practicalities of WAHMing. Basically you have 4 options.

• Daycare or baby sitting, which pretty much defeats the purpose, although some people find a day a week is good. It would also make a difference if you have grandparents around who would love to have them.


• Somehow have an incredibly independent child who lets you work ALL ON YOUR OWN. Personally I'm still waiting to have a shower or go to the toilet on my own. I must say DD is getting a lot more independent and will wander off to play by herself, but I don't get much done in 10 minutes here and there. There is also the option that some kids can do their own thing down one end of the table while you work at the other, but whatever I'm doing is usually much more interesting.


• Work only when they are asleep or your partner is there to look after them. I do have the most fantastic husband, he loves taking DD in the morning and letting me sleep in, and he puts her to bed at night so I get to start some work at a decent hour. Her naps are also settling down, I can usually count on almost an hour's work, although whether I feel like it at that time of day is more problematical. Hmmm, maybe half an hour. Actually, after I check emails and the forums more like, oh, it's not worth it for that time, I'll just keep looking at this.


• Find some way to include them. Getting DD to hold things down while I am cutting is starting to work, although every now and then she feels the need to yank them instead. Painting is much more successful.

Here she is painting the terry tabs that go on my nappies for the snappis to attach to. It is so gorgeous, she carefully straightens them and helps lay them out, then hands me the pins. She tries to pin too, but the little fingers aren't strong enough. Then here I've set her up with all the ones that need to be blue. I chose to go with a paint rather than dye because it is non-toxic and washable, and you can thin it with straight water.

In the background are all the other colours I set up and painted very quickly! And no need to clean up afterwards, I just put the paints away then kept giving her More! More! water and she basically cleaned the containers and brushes. Of course then it dripped all over her and she was Cold! Cold!

Then after we dried and washed them she pegged them all up on her own little clothesline. I should have got a photo of that too, she loves having her own line and always helps hang out the washing. The problem is convincing her to let it dry before bringing it in.

Oh, why is she naked? She's a toddler and it's paint! Why do you think she's naked? (It is high 30s here.)