The Secret Life of a Mom in Public Accounting

It's no secret - CPAs practicing in a public accounting firm work a lot of hours.  I've seen those 80 hour weeks and have been sitting in my cube at 2:00am wondering why I chose this profession.  Sometimes it's just not that pretty.

We "planned" our pregnancy to ensure a due date post 4/15 - not lying.  So when Lily decided to waltz into our lives over a month early, my first thought was this isn't happening the week before 3/15!  It should have been more along the lines of what kind of health risks are we facing???? 

Before Lily was born I knew I wanted to keep working.  I'm not the kind of person who could stay home by myself all day - unless of course Lily still went to daycare everyday.  When I returned to work after my four months of maternity leave I was more than ready.  Lily wasn't an easy baby and there were moments I strongly considered returning from leave early.  Now that she's in such a fun stage of her life I wish I had that time back but there's no way you could pay me to stay home with her day in and day out.  Even so, I knew something would have to change.

Leaving the office by 5:00pm in July was one thing - doing it February-April was going to be another.  Even in the "off-season" by the time I picked Lily up from daycare, I was still only seeing her for an hour before she went to bed.  There was no way I was going to not see her at all for three months.  My choices were cut back on my hours, find a new job, or stay home.  After considering staying home for about 30 seconds, Mike and I decided I would go clinically insane and that unfortunately there was no way my personality was going to fit into any mommy play groups.  And a new job?  One where I probably had to arrive at 8:00am and was chained to my desk until 5:00pm?  Yeah.  There are just way too many days I can't even get out of bed until 8:00 and way too many days I like to visit Target on my lunch hour. 

So it was clear I'd need to cut back on my hours.  As my sixth busy season is quickly approaching, I'm jumping in feet first at a 90% flex schedule.  What does that mean?  90% of the stress?  Probably more like 90% of the hours and 110% of the stress.  But the most important thing it means - I'll be putting Lily to bed every night.  And I'll be spending 100% of my weekends with her.  I'm grateful I'm in a position at a company that will allow me to do this.

I know it won't be easy.  It's day 14 of this new venture and I've already worked almost every evening and made an attempt at booting up my computer on a Saturday.  I'm thankful I have an understanding husband who does the dishes, vacuums the living room, and attempts to the fold the laundry.  I'm also thankful I have a husband who reminds me sometimes enough is enough and plops Lily down in front of my laptop.  It's not easy balancing work and life but here's to trying.