Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Can't Someone Else Do It?

There's an old episode of the Simpsons called "Trash of the Titans" where Homer campaigns for sanitation commissioner by promising that you won't even need to put your trash in the garbage can -- someone will take it from your house for you. His campaign slogan is "Can't someone else do it?" Then he spends the entire budget for the year in a month and disaster ensues. Hopefully disaster won't ensue when I try the same tactic this coming year. I think I've been volunteering too much. I love helping. The little time commitments that seem so reasonable when I'm offering my help then add up to a lot. I'm left with a family who needs more from me. They need more clean laundry, a more organized home, a less frazzled mom. Of course they should be coming first!

My first step, oddly enough, was volunteering for the nominating committee for my mom's group, ensuring that I would be unable to run for next year's board. I'm going to have to tell our wonderful DRE that I can't be a CCE teacher next year. I am still going to volunteer at the kids' school for easy things where I get to see them (lunch bunch!) or would be there anyway (team mom) but not for bigger commitments.

The biggest step of all is that I'm putting Kate, tiny little thing that she is, into a two day a week Mother's Day Out program. She loves our church nursery already, so I'm sure she'll love a few hours at her new "school." With the few childless hours a week I hope to get all of the errands and cleaning done so that afternoons and weekends are more relaxed.

Christian always says that I'm the center of the family, which I usually think is an exaggeration. I'm starting to realize how much my mood sets the mood for the family. A less frazzled mom will hopefully lead to a calmer family next year.

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