Busy as a Bee

Date: October 20, 2021

For those who are not aware of, busy as a bee is an idiom which means "very busy". This is how I feel from Monday till today (Wednesday).

Monday: Multitasking level 2.0

It was Monday, October 18th when we have our new comers. Yes, our team is actually expanding because we're planning to have a global support soon. So far, since Last May, we already have 4 additional team members and we're still looking for another one which will complete our pack.

In our team, I am the one responsible to assist our new joiners to secure their access to the system and to the applications that we support. And that means, I don't have idle time. Everything is fine when it comes to work actually. However, this week is also my eldest son (grade 6) and daughter's (grade 2) exams week. They are currently attending online class, of course from the same school.

My grade 6 son can manage the review of his lessons on his own but for my grade 2, I really need to assist her or else, she would just play mobile games while pretending to be reviewing.

Every Monday, my shift starts at 3:00AM. So at around 5:00 AM, I started to prepare our breakfast. And then from time to time, I go upstairs in my mini-office to make sure nothing comes up and everything is running fine for my work. Unfortunately, my youngest son woke up as well while I am cooking our breakfast hence every time I go upstairs to check my computer, he goes with me as well. Then when I go downstairs to continue cooking, he will come with me again. He's been like my walking tail.

At around 7:00AM, I woke up my eldest son and my daughter. They need to take a bath before 8:00AM so that they can do another round of review before their exam has started. My eldest son's exam starts at 09:30 AM while my daughter's exam starts at 10:00AM. Why am I doing this? I am doing this because I want them to grow up with a mindset that studying is important.

To make them both motivated, I told them that right after their exam, I will let them use their gadgets till 8:00 PM as a reward. Yes, playing online games is one of their motivations because their gadget time is only limited in a daily basis. Weekend before the exam, they are not allowed to hold their gadgets unless during review time. Hence, they both are very excited to hold their gadgets and play mobile games because they are not able to do it the past weekends (Saturday and Sunday).

After they ate their breakfast, I prepared the comfort room for them to take a bath. I asked my daughter to take a bath first before her brother. While my daughter is taking bath, I cleaned the dishes and from time to time, I go upstairs to check my computer. I fix my daughter's hair before we both went upstairs to take another round of review. This time, we're doing the review in my desk so I can check my work while helping here with her review.

Here comes her exams, a technical issue has been encountered. She run knocking at my door and told me of her problem. Her screen freezes and hence she cannot see what her teacher is showing them which they needed to answer. So I stopped from working to make way for her to use my PC. I asked her teacher that my daughter needed to switch from Tablet to PC. I also informed the teacher that my daughter has no answers yet on all items because of that incident. The teacher then repeated the questions from number 1.

While waiting my daughter to finish with her exams, I brought my youngest son to sleep because he was sleepy already by that time. I did not washed him because he is still lacking of sleep (he woke up too early with me).

And the multitasking saga continued after my daughter has finished her exam and I logged in back to continue my work. In other words, my one hour break was spent when my daughter is using my PC for her exam which just took more or less 30 minutes till completion.

Tuesday: Multitasking level 2.5

Tuesday (October 19, 2021) when I started assisting our new joiners. His schedule starts at 09:00AM hence starting that time, I don't have any idle time anymore. Since my son and daughter's exam is only scheduled MWF (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), three subject each day, Tuesday and Thursday are allotted for their review. But since I needed to assist our new joiners, I don't have spare time anymore to review my daughter in between my shift. In other words, I would have to do it after work.

My morning routine stays the same. I will prepare breakfast before 7:00AM. Have to do it while I am working because if I don't then the kids won't have their food in the table when they woke up. And then after the kids had finished their meal, I will sneak time to clean the dishes and the entire kitchen. I also sweep and mop the floor. Those are what I normally do in between my shift whenever I find some time. A quick 5 to 15 minutes break is good enough for me to do those house chores.

I feel like I am a "saw" (lagari) who's going back and fort.

I will go and prepare the kids meal, and then go back to work. After few minutes, I'll go and wash the dishes, then go back to work again and so on and so fort.

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Why do I have multitask?

Our stay-out helper is absent since Saturday last week due to some personal errands. She didn't actually told us that she won't be back by Monday and the worst, she's not around till today (Wednesday). That's why I am so upset with her as well. She's not around when we needed her most. I am busy at work and busy assisting my kids with the review but still I needed to do the house chores plus taking care of my toddler at the same time.

And that's the reason why I am busy as a bee since last Monday. I cannot clearly elaborate each of the house chores that I needed to do in between of my shift plus the review time I needed to do for my daughter while taking care of my toddler but I know some of you can relate specially the stay at home moms who used to do all the house chores (alone) in a daily basis.

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My stress level as of today is x2 of my height already. My husband actually teased me earlier and read a quote he found in his FB wall. I felt so exhausted yet it's just midweek.

Mula ng magkaanak ako, palagi na akong galit,

maya maya nalang galit, palagi nalang akong galit.

Then he asked me, how can I share this quote and then tag you?

I then responded:

You know why I am always upset? I am working while doing the house chores and taking care of your three kids who's always busy fighting and busy in making our house so messy. It's like whenever they go, I should follow because for sure there's a lot of mess there.

He just laughed at me.

Thank you for your time reading this nonsense article of mine today :). I can't think of a good topic because I just transformed again from being a calm mom to a mudragon mom when I saw my kids mess in their bedroom!.

I just can't help it because I am too exhausted to do another round of cleaning. I already imagined myself laying down in our soft bed but looks like it won't happen yet because I will still need to clean my kids bedroom which is as messy as if a tsunami has passed by.