Volunteering

One of the resolutions that is going to stat showing up more and more over the coming months will be volunteering. I used to volunteer with different organizations a lot. Over the past several years, not so much. It is an area of my life that I would like to start becoming a lot more active in, especially volunteering for organizations that I feel strongly about.

This month's volunteering resolution was simply to ask about volunteering in the nursery at our church. I'm starting with this one because it is partly self-serving. I'm hoping that by volunteering in the nursery, that I can help my son transition to being left there during church service. We are blessed to attend a church that offers a 30 minute family service every Sunday, so that is the one we have been going to, and just bringing Andy with us. His separation anxiety is very heightened right now, and my husband and I both know we would not be able to sit comfortably through church knowing he would be so upset the whole time he was in the nursery. So, we go to the family service, but I am still keeping him occupied for 30 minutes, trying to keep him quiet, chasing after him, etc. I don't feel like I am getting what I want or need out of church every week. My hope is, that after several weeks of being in the nursery with him, we'll be able to leave him in there and attend the 9:00 a.m. worship service and then I can still volunteer during other services as needed.

I was thrilled that they seemed excited about me wanting to volunteer. Apparently the two women who work in the nursery are paid employees (which I did not realize) so it will be nice for them to have a "back up" person, or just some additional help. I need to take an online course and then I'm going to shadow during the 9:00 a.m. service this coming Sunday. I'm hoping that this will be something good for myself, and will help my son.

I have totally given up on taking him to the nursery at the gym for now. I've been going to the gym four mornings a week at 5:00 a.m. so that I can be back before my husband leaves for work in the morning. Surprisingly, I like this set up! The only issue that I had last week was that I couldn't quite get my sleep schedule right, so I kept taking naps in the afternoon because I was so tired and then didn't get anything done AND couldn't fall asleep early enough that night and the whole cycle started all over again! Hopefully I'll be more on track this week!