Returning to Work After 9 Years at Home - Tips on How to Adjust

I've been a working mom all my mommy life (by choice) and here are a few things that helped me...

1. No guilt. When you're home, enjoy being at home. When you're at work, enjoy being at work.

2. Practice the routines you want your children to follow BEFORE you need them. Make them a habit. If you're not working that day, do the routine anyway!

3. Check out www.flylady.net for some great home organization (time, clutter, philosophy, etc.) that will really help.

4. Have a small collection of super fast and easy dinners for the days you're too tired to cook. When I was growing up, these were "brinners"...breakfast meals for dinner, like scrambled eggs, waffles and such. For me and my family, this is generally tacos, chicken fettuccine alfredo (we use jar sauce and always have chicken cooked and ready to toss into meals on a moment's notice) or soup.

There are, of course, a ton more, but these things have helped me the most.

Good luck!

Love the other answers and support them. Lots of night time preperation to make morning run smooth. House cleaner, no guilt, still find mommy time away from family and work. Do fun set-aside dates with your kids on the calender circled so they see what is coming up for you two to have plans.
Send notes in their lunches that you love them and miss them.

Everyone is different, but for me the best thing I did was to hire someone to clean the house. It let me use my time at home to be with the kids, instead of cleaning. Also it made me less upset when things got messy right after I cleaned. Made a huge difference in my outlook. So figure out the things that you can get someone else to do or what you can let go of.
I am very fortunate that I have a job I love and feel it helps people. This is important to me. I work all sorts of hours - nights, days, weekends, but not all at once. I think my kids do more about taking responsibility for themselves. For example, they make sure they have what they need for school in their backpack the night before, they prepare their snacks for school, etc. When they forget things for school, if I am home I can bring it. If I am at work, I can't do anything about it. I hope it teaches them responsibility. So figure which things your kids can take over doing. Try not to feel guilty about this. It's part of being a family, the work has to be divided up. Good luck!