Stay at Home Working Mom

 I once got a phone call that was supposed to go to Jeff's office instead.

The woman asked me "Do you WORK for Jeff?"

I laughed inside thinking "Yes, I work for him (really with him) just not at the office."

So I am definitely a working woman...just a stay at home one. And, I don't get a paycheck...thats tangible at least.  Paychecks come with self pats on the back, a fed family, a clean(er) house, the personal satisfaction of a job well done and the occasional thank you. :)

So this last week I had the opportunity to leave my housewife kingdom to go out in the world and offer my services...again for intangible paychecks.

It is Book Fair time again! While I don't live at the bookfair like Simone does at this time I did spend a lot of my morning on Monday getting all the flyers in the teacher's boxes and then Tuesday was spent setting up for the book fair.

In the end a lot of teachers complained that they never got their flyers...so much so that either sabotage was going on or I really missed something. Maybe they'll fire me next time.

Wednesday I signed up to help sell concessions at Ramona during school hours for Jacob's band festival. I felt bad for the mom in the meeting that only had 2 parent volunteers to help.

The night before I asked Jacob about the permission slip to the band festival because I hadn't seen it.

"Mom I'm not going. I'm in intermediate band, only Advanced band goes."

So I was just now doing it for the good of the school.

 

The day was crazy and tiring and within an hour I had to find a bank and get more change. In the morning all the kids were paying for their $1.00 muffins with $20s! It was nice to just have a cash box because I knew that we wouldn't have to make sure the money matched the register total at the end. I got pretty good at adding up totals and giving change in my head (nobody thought to bring a calculator).

A little later I was thinking maybe it wasn't so good to just have a cash box because one of the other moms with me kept freezing and not knowing how much to give back as change. She said "I don't know how to do this I think I'm ether shorting them or shorting us every time." After that I would 1/2 listen to her transactions too so I could help if needed!

I made the mistake of not eating while I was there and I wiped myself out because right after I got home it was Taylor's track meet.  

This time Jeff got there in time to join me and we were able to watch Taylor compete. Jacob was at play practice and Ashley was at activity days, so just Jeff and I got to cheer him on.

Taylor ran the 800 and beat his last PR.

Right now Taylor is the 2nd fastest Freshmen in the 800. Way to go Taylor! 

Thursday I was back at the concession stand for another day of working.

I got to see all kinds of kids from junior high and high school including the kids from Miller and Rubidoux (my old high school)

It's always funny to see how much different the kids look from junior high to high school.

This time I took time to eat lunch and actually ate one of the burgers we were selling :)

Friday my job was field trip chaperone for the 3rd grade trip to the Long Beach Aquarium.

I agreed to go on the bus with Ashley even though a nice couple that was driving offered me a ride. Ashley really wanted me to come with her and since I knew it wouldn't be too much longer that she would WANT me to hang out with her on field trips I went on the bus.

I regretted it.

Of course she sat with her friends.

I ended up in the back of a bumpy, loud bus.

That wouldn't have been the worst of it but I guess we were following some "no parent left behind" policy and spent 45 minutes of the field trip time sitting on the side of Van Buren while one of the buses had to turn around to get a parent who complained to the principal that they had missed their ride.

This did not help the patience level of the children...or us.

I was very glad I had brought a book to read.

Here is some of Ashley's school friends. Glad to be done with the 2 hour bus ride. Now they were ushered into a 45 minute movie.

We got to wait outside for them.

I went around and checked out some fish on my own so I knew some of the fun places to take them to when they were done.

After their movie we all ate lunch outside.

Then we finally could walk around the Aquarium.

We had one hour before we had to meet for the buses.

(It could've been 2 hours if it weren't for that parent....just sayin)

I sped them through the aquarium so we could get enough time to see as much as possible.

As soon as they got interested in one tank I would give them a few seconds and then tell them about all the cool things that were in the next tank.  That kept them moving along pretty good.

Then we went outside to the touch pool.

One of the boys in my group (Jacob) was scared to touch anything.

He told me "I've never touched an underwater creature!" and it didn't look like he wanted to try.

It's funny because I didn't really know this boy very much before. I noticed him after school about a week before and remember thinking he had a little bit of a tough look, maybe it was his Mohawk and he looked like he always had an attitude. Of course I get him in my group. But I was glad because I got to know that he was sweet, he asked a lot of questions and was scared to touch the sharks.

When we got to the touch pools with the stationary animals, he agreed to try and touch a starfish and a sea anemone. (You would think it was burning his finger with how fast he pulled it away)

By the time we were ready to move on he was ready to touch the rays. I was happy that he had somewhat gotten over his fear but by this time it was time to go back to the bus, and one of the other kids had to use the bathroom...so we moved on.

We ran by the jellyfish on the way out...

and happened to find the Octopus that Josh was asking about. We got a very cool view of him as we went by!

In the end it was a fun field trip even though it was 7 hours of field trip with only 1 hour spending it with Ashley.

Ashley even met a new friend on the field trip and went over for a play date with her.

While she was there, Jacob was at play practice and Taylor was at track I know had to resume my housewifely duties and clean the house...

Which isn't made any easier during rainy season when I have to keep drying off a muddy dog.

Of course she helps me out when I spill things on the floor.

Saturday night was the New York Life kickoff dinner.

It was at the Mission Inn and we had a whole table full of friends to enjoy it with.

Stubbs...

Parkers...

The Gunnells...

and now the Lauritzens!

Jeff got awards presented to him by the new Managing Partner, a good, positive change for the office.

Ethan got an award including New Agent of the Year...way to go Ethan!

The boys got their tangible awards...we wives got a round of applause for supporting them.

I wholeheartedly support Jeff in his career because he always supports me in mine. My "job" might never win me any awards but it allows me to be there for our children in ways that money can't buy....even if my "clients" don't realize how good they have it sometimes.

Monday night was Family Night and I thought I would teach the family my Gospel Doctrine lesson from the day before since none of them were there to hear it. My lessons usually go over well on Sunday...

I even had visual aids...

I talked about the parable of the sower...

The parable of the wheat and the tares...

The mustard seed....

and the parable of the leaven....

It was about at this point that I looked around and saw sleeping, distractedness and 2 family members roughhousing with the dog. 

I announced that I was done teaching since nobody was listening. Everyone assured me that they were listening (even though they could've fooled me).

Luckily the doorbell rang and the mood was lightened when we got "Ding Dong" ditched with treats to start off family week.

Thank you mysterious giver!