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I am a stay-at-home mom of two sons, 12 and 10. I used to be an advertising manager. I love my new career and have thrown myself completely into it.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The Party's Over

OK - my experiment with being room mom in both my sons' classes officially ended about two weeks ago. It's taken me this long to catch up with things and actually get back on my blog again. Things got really crazy after we came back from spring break, which was April 19.

Let me digress for a moment before I go into the details of the last two months of school. When I signed up to be room mom in both classes, I meant to be a room mom in both classes, like out of 3 or 4 moms. However, I somehow became HEAD room mom in both classes, which surprised and kind of worried me because I had never been room mom before. For some reason, the teacher from my son's 5th grade class signed me up as the head room mom and no other moms signed up for my other son's 3rd grade class. I think the 5th grade teacher picked me because I talked to him in person about my interest rather than just filling it out on paperwork that came home in the beginning of the year. I was scared when I found out I was the only room mom in the 3rd grade class. The teacher asked two other moms if they would help me and they agreed. They ended up helping a lot and I became friends with one who I hadn't previously know and better friends with the other one. So I ended up being in charge of all the money for the two classes, sending letters to parents, planning parties, figuring out teacher gifts, etc.

So this is a summary of the last two whirlwind months of school. We got back from spring break and the 5th graders were having an event in about a month (May 25) called American Heritage Day. It's a fun day where the moms get various speakers to come into their classrooms and talk about what it means to them to be Americans. We had an Auschewitz camp survivor, a Pearl Harbor survivor, a woman who lived in a Japanese internments camp, a woman who grew up on an Indian reservation and others. Then the children have a performance that they put on for their families in the evening. Well, we had different committees to help plan this day because it's fairly complicated to put together. I signed up for one of the committees, but didn't want to be the head of it. Well, suffice to say, I became the head of it. So I was very busy for a month getting information for a letter sent home where each student would select which speaker they wanted to hear for each of 3 sessions, then assigning each student to specific speakers each session and creating programs and nametags. There were many details and it was very time-consuming. Everything ended up going smoothly and the day turned out great!

Then the next week, the 5th grade teacher had a baby shower at school. The week after was the 3rd grade teacher's birthday. I was also putting together scrapbooks for each teacher as an end-of-year gift. Now that was quite a feat because I'm not a crafty person and have only done one scrapbook in my life and that was a collaborative effort. Thankfully, all the room moms in both the classes really helped me out with that.

The week after the 3rd grade teacher's birthday was a lunch I organized for the whole 5th grade, then the day after, we presented the end-of-year scrapbooks to both teachers. The final week, I helped plan and came to a pool party for the 3rd grade and the last day of school, I planned and organized a lunch for both classes.

During this time I had to send multiple letters to parents in both classes, get money (birthday gift) and scrapbook pages from the kids, get kids to sign cards without the teachers knowing (baby shower and birthday), buy gifts, cards, food items, etc. The amount of details was staggering! I woke up a number of nights with details swimming around in my head because I was so afraid of forgetting something. I had a long to-do list and then would break it down by day so I wouldn't forget important deadlines.

Somehow it all came together and it was all successful (whew!!) I had good help from a number of moms, which made it manageable and more pleasant.

OK - so now would I do it again?
If I had the same choice at the beginning of the year, I would do it again. I formed some new relationships and built some closer relationships. I got to know the teachers much more personally than I would have and I was fortunate that I really liked the teachers! My sons enjoyed that I was so involved and enjoyed seeing me in their classes so much, although I do know they have no idea how much behind-the-scenes work I was doing. The best part of this experience was that the boys did get a sense of pride having me be "head" room mom in each of their classes and I really enjoyed building the relationship I did and know that will continue. I also enjoyed the sense of accomplishment from actually achieving success in this endeavor. I haven't worked officially for almost a decade and this taught me that I still have marketable skills, namely managing, organizing, planning and negotiating. It felt good to use these skills again and know that they haven't atrophied from non-use.

Will I be room mom again in either of their classes? I won't say never, but I've done it, it was successful and why push fate. The down-side was that family issues came up during the year that I wasn't able to put my full attention to or effort into. And that sometimes made me sad. I also realized that I did this mostly for my sons and if I neglected other issues that affect them because I'm caught up in details and busy-work, then I'm not really doing what I set out to do - I'm not reaching my real goal - to stand beside them with support and guidance.

4 comments:

  1. Congrats - glad it worked out for you and that you enjoyed it. I couldn't have done it. Hats off to you!!!
    Monique
    http:..armsofasister.com - stopping by from twittermoms

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  2. Thanks, Monique! I'm glad it's over, though. Now I can take a breath LOL. BTW, you've got a nice blog and now I've subscribed to it. Have a great day.

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  3. You are a brave woman! I've been head room mom to 1 class at a time and it was hard work and a thankless job. Fortunately, I think it meant a lot to MY child, as I'm sure it did yours!

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  4. You are very brave to have tried this! As a teacher myself I have not ever had the chance to be a room mom. I understand why goes into it! Good job!

    I found you on twittermoms.

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