Transition to *just* being a mommy

Transition to full-time Mommy!

Five years ago, I sat in an apartment on the east coast, recently unemployed but pregnant and hopeful. At the time, we had determined that I'd stay home for a year or so, then transition back to the workforce. I enjoyed working and staying at home long-term wasn't on my mind. My mom worked, my aunts all worked, my gramma worked... why wouldn't I? Plus, I'd invested heavily (both time and money) in my education, so of course, I'd go back to work.

The time came much sooner as I had received a call to come back. While we had already determined we'd be moving to another state, we chose Arizona due to the cost of living and my possibilities to go back to work. Well, things worked out for me to telecommute and I've had that flexibility since then, which has been great and while in some positions it caused me to put in a lot more late hours than otherwise, it really has been great.

Now five years later, I'm in a similar situation. Soon to be unemployed (as part of a reduction in force, which I understand and actually support) I am making a big transition in my life.

This time around, I have two kids. I have a different outlook and as an "actual" parent, I know how hard it is to even consider making a job change with young kids. While I had a feeling this lay off was going to happen, we've decided that staying at home will be best for our entire family. Recently our au pair's time was up with us, and I determined it wasn't a good idea to find another au pair, not knowing what would happen "next. Since when we commit to an au pair, it is for the one year time frame for their visa, it just wouldn't be fair to an au pair to bring them on not knowing if we could really commit as we should. So, since then I've been wondering what is next.

As of now, I have another 28 days until the day of separation takes place, and hopefully in that time I'll be more confident in this decision. Really, hopefully I don't freak out two weeks from now, succumb to my fears and start applying for jobs that may not  be the right fit for me. Instead, I hope we're heading to the path of smooth sailing on my "transition to full-time mommy."

I'll be hopefully keeping you readers up-do-date and you can watch the tag "transition to full-time mommy" for my thoughts, feelings and see if I do end up running myself back to the office!