As you might imagine, there’s a new world order here in our house now that there’s a baby at home. He comes first, we come second, and the dogs take whatever they can get. That’s pretty standard, but what happens when you also work at home?

I’ve been able to slowly dip my toe into the waters here, because my wife is still off work after giving birth. But even with that, we’ve seen big changes. She’s awake throughout the night with feedings, so when I get up before 7, it’s my job to keep him busy so she can get a couple hours of much-needed sleep. This is a lot of fun for me (except when he’s screaming in my ear), but it’s also one of the busiest times of the day for me.

Mornings are usually filled me with trying to catch up on what I missed overnight as well as what came in from the east coast that morning. That means I see all the work ahead of me, but I can’t quite tackle it as quickly as I’d like. Instead, I’m working on becoming the world’s fastest one-fingered typist while simultaneously bouncing him and doing anything humanly possible to keep him calm. It’s not easy, though I’ve found he does seem to like the Beach Boys. At least he has good taste.

During the day, my wife is usually able to let me work while she takes care of him, though I had to interrupt writing this post when she asked if I could run in and see why he was crying while she cooked dinner. That’s not bad, and I don’t mind it as long as I can get work done much of the day.

This all changes next week when my wife goes back to work part time, with full time following just a couple weeks later. We’ve been frantically searching for a nanny, surprised to find that there are some pretty awful candidates out there. But even when we find one, I’m still afraid that it’s going to make being productive a much more difficult task.

Anyone else have experience with this?