Busy Me.

An idle mind is a devil's playground. A reason why I keep going out of my way looking for things to do to occupy my already busy schedule. However, having an almost 2 year old constantly in my shadows does limit the kind of activities that I would like to be involved in. The task of finding someone to care for her while I busy myself with activities that does not involve my children just doesn't seem right to me. I've heard of the guilty working mom syndrome. Maybe this is the guilty stay-at-home mom syndrome?

I had jumped up at the chance to do the monthly bus roster due to several reasons. Firstly, I wanted to be able to help a friend out as I was aware that doing the monthly bus roster was taking up much of his time especially since he had a very busy work schedule. He had put in so much work, time and effort into getting the whole bus service up and running that I thought it was the least that I could do to help out.   

I had also wanted to be more involved with the school bus service since I couldn't do bus duties being the sole carer of Baby H. Bringing her along on the bus wasn't an option as she will not be covered under the bus insurance. This was what I thought to be a way for me to contribute and show my appreciation towards a most valuable service. The bus had solve a huge dilemma we had faced previously when I was unable to drive (till like 2 weeks ago! lol). We had a hard time figuring out the logistics to sending and fetching our children from school each day. Tried car pooling but since the dads involved had erratic work schedules, we would find days with no one to drive the kids to school and catching a cab with the children and the baby became a nightmare for me.

The bus roster was also a good distraction for me. Children, family and house chores keeps me busy enough, but the distraction provided an escape outlet for me to unwind from my monotonous daily schedule. Trying to fit in erratic work schedules and requests while allocating equal amount of shifts to each family each month is like trying to solve a puzzle. Challenging, sometimes fun but most time quite tiresome. LOL. However, when it all comes together, I feel satisfied.

Now that I can drive, I look forward to the days I need to pick them up from clubs and ferry them around for their extra curricular activities. It gives me a sense of purpose and I have a reason to go out. I love being in the car with them talking or just listening to them chattering away.

In future, I plan to join the moms coffee mornings, arrange playdates and volunteer for school activities. It would also be nice if I could involve myself with some NGOs as well but that would have to wait till my little one is off at school which won't happen till 2012.

Presently, I'm running my own community website (which unfortunately is not as active as I would want want it to be), managing this blog, doing lessons and revisions with Dearest S each day, creating my own materials, teaching aids and methods to teach Cheeky M and Baby H to read, trying out new recipes, figuring out activities to do with the kids during the weekends  and the latest, planning a community garage sale. Why do I keep myself as busy as possible? So I could avoid the one thing I loath doing the most, the laundry. ;)