Room Parent of the Year

Last year, I volunteered to be a room parent at my eldest daughter's school. Basically, room parents are the liaisons between the school and the parents of the children in the classroom.

She was in fourth grade and this was the first time I attempted to take on that task. I had no idea what to expect.

As the year drudged along, I found out that we were required to attend four all-room parent meetings during the school year in addition to corresponding with the homeroom teacher on in-class events, and have a series of sub-meetings for which we had to plan various functions.

Now granted, it sounds like a lot. However, I was saved by the fact that there were two parents assigned to each grade level room. So our class had two parents (I was one of them) and the other fourth grade girls class had two parents. So luckily, I had three other parents to mooch meeting notes off of. Ahhh...reminded me of my good 'ol college days.

Here's the lesson I took away from that little experience: Either you have your shit organized, or you just go with the flow. Me? I ended up falling into that latter category, as is evident by the notes I took at one of those four required all-room parent meetings, shown below:



Yes, dear readers. I wrote my notes ON THE BACK OF MY CHECKBOOK.

Not only did I arrive late to the meeting, I came totally unprepared. I tried to maintain my dignity as I sat there scribbling with a half-ass pen I had to borrow, furiously burying my nose into my checkbook (thank goodness I threw that in my purse the night before, otherwise my notes would have been on Kleenex tissues) so as I don't see the look of a mixture of horror and polite smiles on the faces of the other, overly-prepared room parent moms.

The mom next to me had a THREE-RING BINDER, with colored TABS, sheet protectors, neat pockets on the inside covers and more paper clips and highlighters than I could count. Seriously? How much time DO you have? Oh, and did I mention she has three kids and basically LIVES at the school?

Thus I concluded that it didn't matter if you work full-time, or stay at home raising your kids full time, or balance a little of both like I do. Either you are an organized schedule follower or you're not. And let's face it, I never was. My kids are on Latin/Greek time when it comes to bedtime. We never did the baths at 5:30, dinner at 6:30, homework done by 7:30, and bedtime at 8:30. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE. Like I said, we just go with the flow. And you know what, it still works out okay for us.

So when I got the email to consider volunteering for a room parent again this year, I decided to hold off and perhaps give it a shot next year, when I get a chance to buy a stand-up easel and a film projector.

-Cathy