No day is ever the same at Laughing Gull Chocolates. This is due to a multitude of reasons. It ranges from our customers, special orders, meetings, workshops and our children’s moods. I am often times asked, “How do you do it?” referring to how we work alongside our toddlers most days and have a growing business. I can never answer this question fully and don’t really know how we get it all done.
There is a dance that is done each morning. Sometimes this dance is well choreographed, other times it is more of an improve dance. We come in the door and our toddlers great each other in elated voices, one of us gets breakfast ready for the kids and ourselves, makes all of us a “chai guy” dirty chai, we eat and get to work. The priorities of the day or week were most likely discussed via group text the previous night or morning. Throughout the day the three of us have a lot of unfinished or pieced together conversations. Most days, we talk more to each other outside of the walls of Laughing Gull Chocolates.
To be honest, what we are doing is hard. We are constantly finding a balance between work, our families, friends and our hobbies. We are like passing ships in the night with our spouses on most weeknights. They all arrive after they get out of work to the shop so that we can all get production done, teach workshops or host private events. The dynamic is ever changing as we grow as a business and as our children grow. We write things down, follow up with each other, use cloud based technology to ensure we are all on the same page, and make the most out of our kid free time. We do SO much work when our kids nap or we do work while our children sleep on us. I like to refer to it as the “nap time hustle”.
Some days I feel like I didn’t get anything accomplished and that I am failing as a mother, friend, spouse, business owner and human. Then I have to remind myself that I am enough and am doing big things. I assisted with taking care of, loving and playing with my child along with my best friends children. I was there for my child in her times of need. I am an owner of a growing business that is truly changing the community with chocolate. This is what makes it all worth it. I have chosen my hard with working alongside my child and there is no place that I would rather be.
