I finally took the opportunity to volunteer in my daughter’s first grade class. It just happened to be the last day of school. Is it horrible to admit that I had deliberately not used my vacation or comp days to serve in Lexi’s classroom? If it is, then at least I have another 11 years to remedy the situation. My husband is a regular volunteer in the class, and I was excited about having my turn…until he came home from volunteering and told me that the teacher planned on working me hard during my allotted time.

Hahaha…he was kidding, right? He assured me that Lexi’s teacher had uttered those exact words. Then I got nervous and anxious about whether she really was going to put me to work to make up for the entire school year when I hadn’t served. So I did what any neurotic working mother would do-I begged my husband to go with me the next day and help me during my two hours. In that moment, I realized that I didn’t know what the procedure was to volunteer. I knew I head to the office and sign in, but then my husband reminded me that I needed to wear the volunteer clip that was hanging on the wall. What wall? There are lots of walls in the office. Then he said, “You’ll be fine. You know where to go next to get to Lexi’s class.”

Ummm…no, no, I don’t. I honestly couldn’t remember where in the school Lexi’s classroom was. What color was her hallway? That’s when I stopped asking and just demanded that he come with me because my pride wouldn’t allow me to ask the school secretary for directions to my daughter’s classroom on the last day of school. “Just go through the library and her classroom is the last one on the right of the art room.” What? That’s all Greek to me. I felt like I needed a GPS for the school, and it’s not even a big school. My husband relented and accompanied me.

I was feeling confident on the way there, but then my husband started sharing the “unspoken rules” of volunteering. What? “When you get there, you don’t walk right into the classroom because it’s distracting. You just give the teacher a little wave to let her know you’re there, and she’ll come out and give instructions when she has a moment. She’s very organized and will have everything laid out that she’ll need you to finish. Oh, and you’re going to have some gluing to do. The teacher likes the pages glued a certain way. One dot on each of the four corners, but not too much or it’ll bleed through the papers.” He went on to tell me about the children who would most likely finish first and those who need extra time.

He knew what he was talking about! The teacher had us working on photo journals that the children had been working on throughout the first grade. She had printed out multiple class photos and asked us to try to find the best smiling picture of each child for their photo journal…except I didn’t know who most of the kids were. Fortunately, my husband was able to assist and name each child.

We did take advantage of the time to walk to Lexi’s second grade class and meet her new teacher because I did not want a repeat of this scene a year from now. I felt momentarily guilty for missing Lexi’s first day, being out of town for parent/teacher conferences and her first grade music program, but I can’t change any of that. It just mean that I have to be more intentional next year about making sure I am in her classroom and school on the days I am available.

So I survived my volunteer experience in Lexi’s first grade class, and I felt relieved and very thankful that I would be going back to my office this week! I have a new level of respect for educators and administrators in elementary schools. Those kids are little, but crazy!