Testing my resolve

This year, I decided to go simple with my New Year's Resolutions.  No insane, unattainable goals (run a marathon in June!  lose 50 pounds!), but simple things, like start counting calories again, exercise more, drink more water, cut down to only one pot of coffee a day.  I also resolved to be more patient with my husband and son, and to try to not stress about little things so much.

I almost broke all of my resolutions January 1st.

The first issue was that the first day of the new year fell on Sunday.  Which meant that, instead of sleeping in and having a lazy day off from work, I had to get my butt in gear to get to church.  And I had to do all this without my typical morning pot of extra-strong black coffee.

When I got to church, it became obvious that my resolutions about patience and not stressing so much were going to be tested.  We were low on volunteers for children's church (because, duh, New Year's), so we were going to have to combine all three classes:  nursery, preschool, and elementary.

The end result was myself and three other volunteers being responsible for 21 kids.

Fortunately, God intervened and blessed me with sweet, well-behaved kids.  I can find no other way to explain how we didn't lose anyone, or have anyone have a bathroom accident, and only had one child melt down into tears (fortunately, her mom was one of the volunteers).

I'll admit I was bummed that I didn't get some of the one-on-one time I'm used to with my preschoolers.  (My one, well, you're not supposed to have "favorites", but in many ways, she kind of is for me, kept wanting me to sit down to play a game with her, but I was too busy endlessly circling and counting kids, making sure none had slipped out of the room and gone missing.)  It was also bittersweet how many of the kids were upset that we weren't going to have a Bible story (just not possible to plan a lesson that will hold the attention of kids aged 0 to 10).

But there were upsides, like that I got to meet and talk to some of the elementary kids, who were so cool and smart and funny.  I never thought you could have such a great conversation with kids who hadn't even reached "tween" status.

And I did feel a great sense of personal accomplishment, that I was able to help wrangle two dozen kids without major incident.  When I got home I was exhausted, and I just slumped on the couch to drink beer and play PS3, but it was a happy kind of exhausted.

So I'm proud to say that it's the fourth day of 2012, and I haven't broken a resolution yet.  Just have to make it another 361 days.

Oh crap, it's a leap year.  Fine, another 362 days.