[tempus vernum]

One other thing popped out at me from your post, when I went back to work my mom (who transitioned from sahm to wohm) told me expect a minimum of a year for adjustment. She had kids in school not HS which added to the adjustment.

I also used to wahm and this is definitely super different.

to mamacat at how old kids are. When I first went back to work, it was really really hard on my 10 year old. My older two were 15.5 and 14 and it wasn't as difficult. Probably because they craved autonomy anyways.

We have slowly developed little subroutines in our schedule and need tweaking every season.

For example when I text "on way" this actually has come to mean "tidy stations asap cuz mom will have a meltdown if the house is a mess" . My ds is very task oriented so he's taken over the household management and reminds them (moms on the way, get stations tidied). The last two weeks he's been I. Drivers ed. After a week of coming home to a trashed house, I started texting "on way, tidy stations please"

Backing up, we had stations for years before I went to work so they were used to dividing and conquering.

Most importantly, grace needs to cover everything.. this is a transition for ALL of you!!!

Now my dd1 has begun looking around and thinking "what would help mom the most?" And starts cleaning, scrubbing or doing chores. It's been lovely

But was very very gradual. In the beginning they were unable to get any thing on the list done. Every day I had to remind them. Now they have a routine.

And we have school as priority so I've had to bend on what tidy and clean mean to me. If they have a big school project I remind myself they r juggling quite a bit.