Janice Dean is a senior meteorologist at Fox News and the mother of two boys, Matthew, 5, and Theodore, 3. This post was written before the snowstorm that hit the East Coast earlier this week.

Today started at 2:30 this morning. Theodore is having not nightmares exactly, but he wakes up a lot. He’s in preschool. There’s a lot going on for him. He shouts out at night. I’m the lighter sleeper, so I get up, and I lie down with him.

I fell asleep. My husband got up with Matthew, and about 6 I heard him open our door gently and say to him, I have to go to work, go get Mommy if you need anything. Within 60 seconds Matthew was in there, and of course, then we were up. Sean hadn’t even left the house. More often than not Sean will let me take a morning nap if I’ve been up with Theodore at night.

We have a nanny five days a week, from Sunday to Thursday. She comes at 7:30 so I can get ready. I walk Matthew to his bus stop, then I walk to the train. She takes Theo to preschool if he’s going (it’s 8:30 to11:30 three days a week), then meets Matthew at the bus stop after school. He’s done at 1. I struggle, because as much as he loves school, he says, “Mommy, it’s every single day and it’s homework ever night!” He says, “It’s a lot of work.” Part of me is sad seeing him growing up, and not home with his brother.

Door to door on the train is an hour. It’s my quiet time. Before I had kids it was like, ugh, I’m so bored. Now it’s this Zen moment to read and catch up.

The first thing I had going was a radio interview about my children’s book, “Freddy the Frogcaster.” After that, I had to get ready for on-air.

My day really depends on the weather, and how big that story is. If there’s a major storm barreling up the East Coast, I’m on twice an hour with Fox and Fox Business Channel, along with doing reports for Fox News Radio. A lot of people think I read a teleprompter. But it’s not scripted. I have a producer, Brandon, who helps with creating my maps but I do all my own research. But even while I’m working on research I have to be camera ready. One tornado warning in a big city, or if we get live flash flooding pictures into our news desk, they’ll call me to get on air ASAP.

I’ve learned my lesson. There was one time when I put off going to hair and makeup — producers called to get me on air, and I had literally 10 minutes to get my wet hair out of a ponytail and the paint on. At Fox, we have the very best hair and makeup in the entire news industry (ask anybody in the business!) They’re fast, (10 minutes for blowout and full makeup) and they make us look like movie stars. I literally come in in sweat pants. They’re magicians. Every woman should have this.

I had to get a lot done in the morning so I could do an appearance at a book fair in the afternoon, then I went back to work. I came home on the 6:30 train, so I got home just in time for bed. I try to be home at least to put the boys to bed if there’s not a lot of breaking weather news. We stay in touch all day so my husband knows when I’ll be home. I have to wait for my news team to clear me and say, you’re good to go.

I might be back at work tonight since there is severe weather in the Northeast. I’m always on call, and have the BlackBerry close by in case there’s a breaking story that has a weather angle. The morning meteorologist comes in about 3, but if there’s something that happens before that, I could get a call at 9 p.m. from Megyn Kelly’s crew saying, Can you come on the air to talk about a story. Earthquakes, tornadoes and, unfortunately, plane crashes sometimes require me to get a call to file a report. Working at a 24-hour news channel, we’re all on the clock.

Sean made dinner, did baths, jammies. They were reading a book on the couch. I came home and got hugs and I was able to see them both off to bed.

I work Saturday to Tuesday. I’m off Wednesday to Friday. My husband works a regular week (in the counter-terrorism center in Queens for the New York City Fire Department) with half-days on Friday when he can so we can all be together, and have a family afternoon once Matthew gets off from school. Saturday he’s it, no nanny, no me.

We’re the luckiest people in the world to have found Debbie, my nanny. When I asked her to start working on Sundays, I said, I understand if you don’t want to. We’ll manage! She said no, no, I want to help you. If she’s sick, one of us calls in sick. I’m very open with that. And we also have amazing neighbors. We’re all aware of one another’s schedules. As a weather forecaster, I always stress that you need to know who your neighbors are. In a power failure or flood, these are people I could call in a heartbeat. My kids know who to go to in case Mom and Dad are at work or there’s an emergency.

My husband and I don’t get a lot of time together. We haven’t sat down to watch a movie or had date nights in so long. We’re both so focused on the boys. I got a gift certificate for dinner the other night, and I have it taped on our fridge to remind us we need to make time for us.

Sean had all the chores done when I came home last night. Usually I might clean up the kitchen, but last night I got to sit down and watch “Parenthood” on DVR from last Thursday. It’s the little things. If you had told me before I had kids that that would be the lap of luxury, well… Most nights I read for a few minutes, but last night I was out like a light.

I’m not getting enough sleep. Neither of us is. My first reaction when Theo wakes us up is always oh, I’m so tired. But I remind myself that it’s not going to be forever. I don’t think I’ve had a full night’s sleep since before I was pregnant. That’s part of the job.