When the Baseline Shifts

Photo by Angela Knox, The Divine Group

It’s the week of Fishing Opener in Minnesota. My husband decided he was going to join the other guys in my family at my brother’s cabin, so all week I was mentally preparing to take care of two kids and a 9-month-old puppy. There was an annual plant sale fundraiser that the girls in my family go to every year the Friday before Mother’s Day, which always coincides with fishing opener. We decided we’d bring my girls since we wanted to get in line before daycare dropoff opened. We live an hour north of St.Paul so we planned on doing the plant sale, having lunch at our usual spot, quickly hauling everyone home to let the dog out, then circling back down to pick up my niece after her school let out. She was staying at my mom’s with all of us through the weekend. I was also thinking about keeping Boone at home for the remainder of the weekend because my sister’s dog was not a fan of him, and we live only a few minutes away from my parent’s house. Driving back every few hours would be a pain, but it was doable. Regardless, the plan was made and I was ready.

Then, the morning of leaving my husband said, “I talked to your brother and I can bring Boone with me.”

The physical release I felt in my chest was immediate. Apparently I was holding a little tension about the back-and-forth of logistics with the kids and dog.

No dog? This weekend is going to be so easy.

I laughed at myself a little. Because I’ve been through enough seasons now to know that ‘easy’ is never a fixed thing. It’s always relative to whatever my current baseline is. There was a season with two dogs. Then two dogs and a baby. Then it was one dog and a baby. Then we added another baby to the mix. Then we lost the second dog and it was just two kids. And now, after getting a puppy this past October, my internal sense of ‘what’s a lot’ has recalibrated to include a dog. So when I hear that I’ve ‘just got the kids’ for the weekend, it feels like a vacation compared to managing the kids and the dog.

And while this observation came from a parenting experience, there’s actually a business tie-in about capacity baselines. Hear me out.

This post is part of the ‘Behind the Business’ series. You can read the rest (plus gain access to the archives) by becoming a paid subscriber. This series is an every-other-week post sharing personal thoughts, comments, strategies and tactics about the ups and downs of building a people-first, service-based business, as a mom and wife.