I am among the fortunate ones to be a part-time stay home Mommy and part-time worker bee. Each of my jobs I truly cherish and God love my husband for working so hard and allowing me the opportunity to have those two jobs. But...I digress. Since I'm home for part of the time I thought 'heck why not take on a few more roles this year'. So I dawned my stylish volunteer cap and became a Girl Scout leader for my girls troop, a member of the School Site Council at school, helped out at the school walk-a-thon, volunteered to take the school recycling every Friday to the recycling drop off, baked at every possible school event, blah, blah, blah. Basically if there was a job to be done, my name was on the list. Honestly, people almost expected my name to be on a list. I would have people call me and make sure I was ok if they didn't see my name. Now, don't get me wrong I love volunteering. I get a personal high off helping people and it's a complete feel good for me. But at the end of the year I ended exhausted and feeling a little sour.
I had scheduled a few too many events on one day in particular . There was some running involved and maybe a brief rocking in the corner episode but I had managed to get everything in place for both events. While I was running wild I kept in my mind that the girls would love it and the parents would love it and that would bring the joy for me. Well the girls had fun and a few parents said it was nice, but the girls weren't appreciative and some didn't seem like they gave a rats. I wasn't expecting fanfare, but a few thank you's or at least a 'this was fun' would have made all the difference. I was even disappointed that some of the parents that I expected to help out didn't bother. Kind of reminded me of when you spend that extra time making your kids that fun lunch and cutting their sandwiches in cute animal shapes and they don't even realize what you have done. "HELLO those are ducks and frogs on your plates kids, not just a sandwich! Wake up!!"
Anyways...I got over not having rose petals thrown at my feet, but it got me thinking about going overboard and doing too much. Would the kids have been just as happy if I threw out a box of cookies and said 'here you go' as opposed to setting up a decorating station with homemade sugar cookies? Could I just have worked an hour shift at the walk-a-thon instead of two full days in which I really missed the entire event because I was trapped behind a table selling food not interacting with my kids? Could I pick one event to give a baked good for instead of five?
I guess with the new year this is the time to prioritize and really think about my time. I think it might be time to draw some lines. Does it mean I won't give when I can? As my sweet Baby J would say "NO way!" But I think I will definitely look at cutting back and making sure my giving isn't cutting into time I want to be spending doing other things. Because truth be told, I'm home to spend time with my three little loves not prove I'm volunteer of the year. Heck why stop at volunteer of the year. I'm going for the big prize baby! Watch out Mom's. I'm going for the Mom of the Year. Well at least in this house.
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