LITTLE DID I KNOW

During my kids' elementary years, I was very involved at the school. I worked with the kids on math tubs. I helped in the classroom during state testing. I provided food for teacher's luncheons. I helped with the book fair and the art fair. I worked in the reading lab. I helped with every class party. I took the dog in to visit their classes every year until, thankfully, the principal put a ban on pet visits. I went on every field trip.



Well, that's not exactly true. There is one field trip for each child that I refused to go on. That was the algae field trip, where the note said something like "the parents will help the children collect samples from various bodies of water in the area; we will also visit the water sanitation district."



Which meant the parents would be wading into local streams and creeks to collect pond scum. Also, we would be fortunate enough to visit the place where all the poo goes.



Um...babies? Kids? Mommy will do a lot for you, but Mommy has no intention of doing the pond scum field trip. Take it up with your therapist.



Anyway, back to my resume. I spent two years on our Community Club board, which is probably like most PTA boards. I really liked that job but there were major personality clashes and I finally let myself be driven off. It was either that or let myself turn into a seventh grader, and I thought that wasn't a good idea.



But, I did all of these things for two reasons:



1) As a stay at home mom, I wanted to be involved and use my time to get to know the teachers and classmates of my children.



2)I couldn't say NO.



When junior high rolled around, I was needed less. I also suspect I was wanted less - at least by my children. I chipped in here and there but mostly spent my time chauffeuring the kids around in the evenings and sitting on the bleachers cheering for various middle school sports teams. This decline in my volunteer status led me to believe that by the time my children entered high school, I could sit on my duff all day and eat gourmet chocolates and read People magazine.



Ohmygosh!! Hold on a second--------



















Whew! I'm back. I had fallen out of my chair for a minute laughing at my own naivete'. Sorry about that.



Now, where were we?



Oh, yeah! The carefree days of high school.



WHAT WAS I THINKING?



See, I have this daughter who LOVES school. She wants to be involved in lots and lots of stuff, which we have encouraged, because we want her to be well rounded and have an impressive college application. In fact,when we ask her if she really needs to do yet another activity she parrots us and says "it will look good on a college application..." I do believe she has made it her goal to take part in every activity the school offers between now and her graduation day, which is fine. It's just taken me by surprise a little bit, after the little respite we had in junior high. First there were all the homecoming activities and the accompanying nervous breakdown for her mother. And soon we will have the responsibility of working the concession stand (and scheduling other workers) at all the JV and Varsity boys' basketball games, (followed, most likely, by another nervous breakdown for her mother.) Yeah, the freshmen get to do that to earn money for their class. That will lead us to her own basketball season which will soon meld into her softball season. Not to mention student council activities and scholastic bowl competitions and any dances and parties that can be squeezed into the schedule. Thank goodness she and her fellow officers are all very diligent students. Thank goodness the other moms are hard workers and good organizers. Oh, and we mustn't forget mall time on the weekends, and I think Friday Night ice skating started last week at the local civic center. Of course, we are only busier with her than with her brother because she can't drive and, since we live 8 miles from the school, we can't very well expect her to walk to school activities, can we?



Even though her father and I walked everywhere in blinding rain, stinging sleet, and scorching sun...10 miles or more... when we were her age. And we liked it.



And then there's my son, who doesn't so much love school as TOLERATES it. But he's getting more involved too. In fact, I have to bake cookies for him for one of his club's projects on Friday. In all my born days I never thought I'd still be baking cookies for school when my child was a junior. But here I am planning a big batch of cookies so the FFA club (Future Farmers of America) can serve lunch to the farmers waiting in line to deliver their crop to the grain elevator. Because that's the way things are done in rural towns of the Midwest. That's the way we do things around these here parts.



Why is my son in FFA when he has no intention of taking up farming? Why is he in FFA when he barely knows how to order a steak, let alone whether it came from a cow or a pig?



Um...I don't know; but I suspect it has something to do with the class Agricultural Science which fulfills his science requirement; allowing him to avoid chemistry like the plague.



Plus most of his friends are in it.



But really, when you live in America's heartland, amid the farms that feed the world, it doesn't hurt to know about something that is so important in this part of the country. After all, we ARE the SOYBEAN CAPITAL OF THE WORLD.



No brag. Just fact.



So my calendar is becoming full again after a couple years of near empty pages. I'm busier than I thought I'd be in this stage of life. The days go fast; and the nights even faster. And the years? Well, they have gone by at lightning speed.



And I'm loving every minute of it.