17 Hours Down

Over the course of the semester I have to volunteer at my kid's "co-op" for 24 hours.

I use the word "co-op" lightly. I don't really know what else to call it, but this place has paid teachers, paid nursery workers, a snack bar, a lunch counter, organized field trips, a graduation ceremony etc.

Anyway, Noah has taken 3 days off so that I could get my volunteer hours all done in September and then in Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan I will have 3 hours with just Berean one morning a week. Oh the things I will be able to accomplish in that amount of time!

Last week I set up, did some office work/direction kind of stuff and worked as a hall monitor. Then I did a lot of vacuuming.

This week I worked the snack bar most of the day and than cleaned up. I love homeschool moms because they are such interesting people. Not that people who don't homeschool aren't interesting, but the homeschool crowd is so energetic. A lot of them homeschool and work (like I do- and it is fun to see how they juggle it), some of them have a lot more kids than even I do, and it is fun to hear their stories. Some of them have gone back to school while homeschooling, some do such fun things with their kids. I love to hear their stories about how their families and their schooling systems have grown and evolved over the years.

Some of the moms have young kids like mine and we commiserate over trying to keep our boys from jumping off of our decks, staying away from fire, and not unscrewing every screw they come across. We also discuss how our husbands dress our daughters like boys, and good responses to the statement, "you ARE done having kids now,aren't you?"

They are definitely not a crowd of boring people- and they are all vastly different. Some wear jean skirts and turtlenecks, some wear boots and mini-skirts. Some have strict schedules and routines and some do not.

Oh, and, just in case you are wondering, the snack bar sells a lot of Mountain Dew- and very few packs of dried vegetables.