Puke Patrol

The project:
Taking care of family business with a little volunteer planning on the side.

Time:
All day.

Literally. ALL. day.

Why bother?
Honestly, I'm not feeling incredibly driven to seek out a project outside the home today. V woke up with some sort of flu. Her recipe for the day: sleep, vomit, repeat.

SO, Mr. B and I worked together cleaning the couch cushions (they needed to be washed anyway), steam cleaning various carpet areas (probably needed it anyway, too) laundering bedding (see previous two comments) and mopping floors (which SERIOUSLY needed it anyhow). Geez, Kid. If you want us to clean the place, just ask!

I also received a call from the Natural History Museum where the girls and I used to spend part of each month volunteering as docents. That dropped off when we took off for a long trip last summer. We hadn't jumped back in, but the volunteer coordinator called with a special project in mind. You'll read more about that later this week if V is feeling better.

This would be the charitable part of parenthood, right? The part where we hold back our kids' hair while they puke in the toilet (or bucket when the can't make it that far). The part where we clean up things we NEVER imagined we'd deal with, in amounts we never thought imaginable, all without a hint of complaint. Maybe this doesn't seem to count on the grand scale of things, but if we don't take care of our own families, what's the point in volunteering to take care of others? The best way to teach our kids to care for others is to demonstrate care for them.

Worth it?
Well, barf patrol was not my plan for the day, nor would it be my choice activity on any given day. But it certainly made for a spiffy house in the long run!