Vol 6: The Real Life of a Mompreneur – Your Schedule Is Not Your Own

Image: Maggie with Pop Wed Co

Let me tell you a little story. Two weeks ago I set out to go meet two DC business owners that own some really cool venue spaces in DC. Evie had been keeping to a pretty standard nap schedule as of late, and I figured I could drive out with her to meet these people right after lunch, much before her 2nd nap.

Boy was I wrong. On the drive over she passed out … and when I pulled up to the venue, I figured she would only snooze another 20 minutes as she hadn’t been sleeping longer than 45 minutes on her second nap in over a week. Another 30 minutes later and she was still fast asleep, as I sheepishly emailed the people I was supposed to meet with that I wasn’t sure the meeting was going to happen – even though I was LITERALLY sitting outside of their venue … in my car. So I decided to drive home because at this point when Evie woke she was going to be hangry, and I had not packed food.

An hour and 45 minutes she slept that afternoon, almost an hour and a half earlier than she had napped in weeks.

The point of this story? The realization and confirmation that when you are a Mompreneur, your schedule is no longer yours to call your own.

Now I had hints of this earlier – I would jokingly tell clients that I needed to give them ranges of when I could potentially arrive for a meeting, because babies just do what they want, and almost never stick to YOUR intended schedule and sometimes Evie would fit right into the timing I gave, and other times she would destroy it completely. Obviously, she’s a baby, this isn’t her fault, but my advice to new mompreneurs or any new work from home parents is this: learn to accept early on that your schedule is no longer yours. Your child will MOST LIKELY do whatever they want and it may make it really difficult to stick to plans you previously made.

This was a HUGE change for me. As a wedding coordinator and generally Type A person, planning and scheduling is my life. I feel anxious when I don’t have my day planner on me and typically refuse to commit to appointments unless I can confirm in my planner that the date/time is indeed free. And while I adapted pretty quickly, personally, to accept this change and the fact that my schedule was now dependent on a completely non-predictable or consistent being, I am still left worrying that others won’t understand.

Clients, vendors, even my friends without kids – I worry that they think I am flakey, late, or not a great planner due to this new, ever-changing presence in my life. Being on time, and sticking to your word are cores to my business, and it’s challenging to not always be able to stick to them while juggling a business and being a parent. But this is my reality and the reality of so many others and just another challenge in the journey of being a mompreneur.

So I’ll continue to face the challenge, head on, the best I can, and hope that others recognize that I am still giving it my best and my all. After all, that is really all I can control.

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