“My husband and my little boys are going to get a reality check!” I said to myself two weeks ago as I drove from my Bellevue home to my new job as a program director for the Boys and Girls Club – Morton.
“I’m going to be cooking less, cleaning less. Oh, and Jason Jr. and Joah will have to depend on their daddy a lot more,” I remember saying out loud as drove down Interstate 80. “I am not an octopus; I only have two arms.”
Two weeks later, a reality check has come. However, it is addressed to me.
I still do all the cooking and most of the cleaning. And even though my children see me two hours later than they did before, they are still waiting on me to attend to their needs. What has changed is my attitude.
As a program director for the Boys and Girls Club, I spend the latter part of my work day working with middle school students. In the short time I have been at the Club, I have learned so many valuable lessons from those students.
I have learned that children only want to be accepted. They want to feel important. They want to be a part of something greater than them. And they want to be able to trust and depend on somebody. Whenever one of our students greets me with a big smile or an even bigger hug, I think about my children.
While impacting the lives of the students I work with, I often wonder what kind of impact I am having on my own children. That, alone, pushes me.
It reminds me that impact and inspiration must always take place in the home first. I want those students at Morton to be able to depend on me and the other staff.
Likewise, I want my children to be at the door when I walk in from work.
“Hi, mommy,” Jason Jr. always says. “I’m hungry.”
Joah normally follows up JJ’s greeting with a squeal and a finger pointing towards the food pantry.
But by the time I make that drive home, I am ready to go from program director to home director. Those simple insights at work make my road trips home a lot more positive than my first drive to work was.
So each night, by the time I walk into my house, my eight arms are out and ready to go. Only now, I’m smiling while doing it!
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