Work ramblings

I've been feeling blue a lot recently. I have a great time with my girls, and enjoy doing crafts, reading stories, running around the yard and going on all sorts of adventures with them. I love watching them grow and their view and understanding of the world around them change. It's simply amazing and I am hesitant to miss any part of it! But I also long for the challenge of an outside the home career. Don't get me wrong, spending the day with two kids - 3.5 and 22 months - is rather challenging. Meeting the needs of two very different children and trying to keep two children happy, well fed and make sure they are worn out by the end of the day is a challenge, especially since we very rarely watch television during the day. I would love to find a position for 8-12 hours a week where I could go and work. I'd love to work in an educational sciences lab helping to create science education programs for kids. I'd also be happy to work in a lab collecting data or even to go back to test engineering helping transition products from development to manufacturing - I'd even be happy writing procedures! Every opportunity I've looked into has resulted in either a technician offer, which I am nervous to accept as I'm afraid it would make it even more difficult in the future should I opt to return to engineering full time or it's resulted in a very lucrative position that requires either full time work or more than 50% travel, neither of which I'm prepared to accept. I'm trying to decide if I should continue to look for work - or even increase my pursuit of a part time career, or if I should simply put it on the back burner for at least a few years.