Yep, I would LOVE more time more than anything else.
I am constantly surprised at the number of people who would trade time for money. I have a measly 2 weeks vacation a year at the age of 41 with two school aged kids, and I have asked upper management repeatedly if I can get an extra week or two off a year, without pay, and you should see the looks I get. That 1-2 weeks extra per year would make life sooooooo much easier.
Right now, half my vacation time gets eaten up by dealing with kids activities or medical appointments. Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom, but I am feeling very personally burnt out at the moment. My days are very hectic - up at 5:30 - in to work by 7:30 - home at 6 - scramble to make dinner and get the kids homework and activities done, maybe squeezing in a 1/2 hour of exercise, get them to bed at 8:30, have a half hour to myself (usually spent cleaning up or preparing for the next day), rinse repeat. Weekends aren't much better because my husband spends all day doing homework for school (getting his MBA) and I am doing laundry/errands most of the time.
Sorry if that turned into a bitch fest, but my primary reason for following this blog is that I want to either quit work or scale back dramatically (to 3 days a week) by age 50-55. This isn't living, it is an endless grind.
I can definitely relate. My boys are 8 and almost 2. I leave the house at 7:20 and get home at 5:20. I work from 7:30 to 4:30, pick up the toddler, drive to the elementary school, pick up my 8 year old and the neighbor's two girls, go home, do dinner by 6.
The toddler is in bed by 8 and the big boy by 8:45 and I go to sleep at 9. Two days a week I get up at 5 am to go to the gym. I walk on my lunch break. I try to get up at 5:30 the other three mornings to work out at home while spouse is at the gym. Toddler wakes at 5:45 to 6:15, so it's hit or miss that I'll get to work out. And sometimes, the toddler wakes up in the middle of the night, so I'm still in this period of no sleep. I tend to have insomnia. So if I am awakened by him, or are under stress, or in a particular time of the month, I am awake for 2 hours. So I try to preemptively strike with Unisom.
I was looking at a new job, but this new job comes with 2 weeks PTO (including sick time) and 9 holidays. Man, that is 3 weeks less than I get now, so no thanks.
I think I will be getting a new boss in a few weeks, and will open the dialogue of going back to part time. I've spent a total of 3 years part time (30-35 hrs/ week, enough to get benefits), and it's amazing what an extra 8-10 hours a week can do for you.
Interesting, that I really don't desire to stay at home. I am reading "The Way We Never Were" thanks to a recommendation from Nords (it's good for putting me to sleep because it's very technical). Makes me think more about the traditional "wife at home" and how that came about.
So last night I took a Unisom after a week of poor sleep. Slept nine hours, woke up with the toddler, and went back to bed for another 1.5 hours. Now it's time to start the day of chores, and wait for the shoe to drop (one of our trips yesterday was to a 2 year old birthday party, where the mom posted last night that her daughter started vomiting at bed time, so now I get to wait and see if my son catches it, and then of course the whole family). That's where most of my PTO goes...