Work and children - struggle continues

In 5 days it will be 3 months since I have been back to work. Certainly, I think, long enough to have quelled the internal struggle I have every morning and evening trying to balance work and home now that there are children. I realized yesterday that 2 hours every day are spent in transit - taking the boys to childcare then taking the bus to work in the morning and then doing it the other way round after work. 2 hours - that is crazy in a town this size. That is like what I spent in Ottawa when working at TMI when there was bad traffic. I so wish it was an option for Phil to either drop off or pick up the kids, but it would mean they either had to be at childcare before 7 AM (instead of 7:30 now) or not get picked up until well after 5 and then home well past 5:30. I can't justify getting them up earlier or having them wait so long for their supper.

Part of me knows that I need to work for my own sanity. Rightly or wrongly, my work is part of the definition of who I am. That is not to say it is my number 1 priority, but when life is rolling along and priority decisions are not required, I need to work.

Part of me hates that someone else is effectively raising my children. I have lost touch with who they are because they are both going through some changes right now. Adam has taken to hanging out in his room to suck his thumb - that can't be good. Alex needs to have more foods introduced - both variety and quantity. For whatever reasons, there has not been meals made for him lately and I don't know the last time he had protien. So he is living on formula, fruit and vegtables. As well, he should be starting to eat breakfast, but there is not time to introduce a waffle for Alex into the morning 40 min scramble that is currently part of our morning routine.

We are so far from where we thought we would be when we first talked about kids and potentially Phil staying home for the first few years. I know he feels like he does not have enough time with the children either, but it always appears to me that he chooses to not hear Adam when he is trying to talk to him or he can tune out what the boys are doing to read his e-mail or he can completely discount their food needs until it is too late to effectively do anything about them.

So where to go from here is what I need to figure out - quit completely, find a job with less hours, ask Phil to quit his job or find a job with less hours. I don't know.