I have a 5 week old baby lying on my chest while I type. Life is crazy – we’re 3 days from Christmas 2021 and not only is it the busiest time of the year at Amanda Klein Co., my husband and I just brought home our most precious baby boy. So why not start a weekly mom entrepreneur blog in the midst of this crazy wild and beautiful time?
I told my husband that I really wanted to keep Caedon at home with me for 9 months, maybe a year, before placing him in daycare. This was my own personal decision – I am privileged enough to have the opportunity to work from home and to have the choice to send him to daycare. As an adoptee whom is now also an adoptive parent, and my utmost priority for the next several years is bonding and attaching with him.
I love being an entrepreneur, I love owning a small-business, I love the challenges it brings and how it forces me to be creative. I’ve told many women that I have such complete respect for stay-at-home moms --- but I am at my core an entrepreneur, a MOM entrepreneur. At 9 years old I decided I wanted to become either an architect or run an ad agency and have some big fancy corner office overlooking some city.
Being an entrepreneur makes me a better mom and being a mom makes me a better entrepreneur.
My enneagram type 3 wing 4 self got to work and read all the info I could find on being a work at home mom (WAHM). Blog after blog and all those please-don't-ever-read chat forums just made me feel anxious and depressed.
Some things I read:
“It’s not possible to work and take care of a baby!”
“Don’t do it! The worst!”
“Worst 3 months of my life!”
I don’t do negativity. I don’t EVER listen to folks that say <enter any task here> can’t be done and it’s the end of the world and <enter whatever here> you should never do it because <enter name of naysayer> couldn’t do it.
A negative fear based mindset will kill every goal/dream/task/achievement you have – why shall I think of this WAHM journey as any different? I won't. Nor will I listen to the negativity and critics --- goodbye!
I'm writing this blog for all the women like me that want encouragement & reality & positivity & refuse to fall into a fear-based negative mindset. I’m going to keep it 100% real and do my darnedest to update this blog weekly.
So how IS all the work at Amanda Klein Co. going? I had the biggest conference call of my career just a few hours before I left for the hospital – this is the reality of small-business, y’all. I’ve been working a little each day since we brought him home from the hospital. Marla and Jennifer were total rockstars and handled all the shipping while I was away. Me at home? I’m learning to master baby carrying while he’s napping (#iluvmybobawrapso) which gives me a wee bit of time to look at sales/future planning + forecasting/painting/customer service/2022 goals/marketing/andalltheotherthingsthathappen. I am taking 12/24/21 - 1/2/22 off to love and hold and just look into the eyes of our baby boy. And I am ecstatic about where Amanda Klein Co. is headed in 2022.
All of this might sound a little unconventional to some folks. But it’s our reality and our life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything – working for myself allows me to set my schedule around my family. The best and worst thing about entrepreneurship is that you control your own destiny. I’m choosing to believe that 2022 will be me at home with my son and working hard at creating this life I want to live and making a world a better place for him.
Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago about what my expectations were with having a newborn – after thinking about that question for a bit, I told them I honestly had no expectations. I truly didn’t. I knew that newborn life would be wonderful and hard all at the same time. And with just a few weeks in, it has been. But not having expectations has lead to a lot less stress than if I had expectations that I wasn't reaching — so that’s 100% how I’m going to approach being a WAHM. Yes, I have a 2022 business plan drafted with goals and dreams and all those things. I will work hard and be very intentional with my time, but above all I have a heart that wants to form a strong bond with my son. I am going into this journey with a healthy mindset of determination, ambition, lots of love, and zero expectations.
xo
Amanda
Week 1-ish-ish WAHM things I can’t currently live without:
- MY COFFEE MAKER.
- My BOBA Wrap.