Is it worth being a Troop Leader?

**yawn** It's 5 o' clock in the morning and I'm still at work.

I'm bored.

I'm hungry.

I miss my bed.

I miss my babies.

More importantly, I'm exhausted. SO exhausted. But I have one more hour to go and I'm free. You see, for one night a week, I work the third shift - 10pm Monday to 6am Tuesday. It's hard. I won't sugar coat it. To make things even more rough, I have a Girl Scout meeting tonight. Don't get me wrong, I love leading a group of girls, but right now, I just wanna sleep.... it'll have to wait.

It's 6am and I'm driving home.

Still yawning.

Still hungry.

Plus side? I'll see my bed and my babies soon.

First, this drive home.... not too bad. I'm reunited with my bed for no more than half an hour. I wake up my daughter; breakfast, teeth, hair, uniform, papers signed, lunch made and we're good to good. My one year is still sleeping (YES!). I drop off my second grader and head back home. Quickly, I jump in bed, turn on my fan and fall asleep. It doesn't take me long.

~

If I'm lucky, I wake up between 10am & 11am. That gives me close to three hours of sleep after an eight hour shift and a few more hours (give or take) from being awake. But not today. No, today my son has a doctor appointment at 10am. I'm awake no sooner than I fell asleep. His bag is packed thanks to my awesome husband and I'm still in my work uniform so we're up and out the door by 9:30am. Baby needed shots today so now I'm drained with a fussy one year old.

I head to the store because we're out of milk. Since I'm out, I decide to visit the Dollar Tree for anything my troop might need that I maybe forgot. My son and I leave, getting home by noon. My son is ready for a nap and goes to sleep fairly easily. I, on the other hand, have a house to clean and a meeting to prepare for. I'm still exhausted.

~

My son is awake an hour later and my house is semi-clean. My daughter goes to after school, which gives me a few extra hours to work on my meeting plans and hopefully get dinner on the table for my husband when he gets home.

I mange to boil some pasta and sear some bratwurst. I leave my son with my mother in law, pick up my daughter from after school and we're on our way to our meeting. Did I forget anything? 

Crayons, yes.

Paperwork, yes.

Phone, ye.... Darn it. I seem to ALWAYS forget my phone, so here we go back home, which is luckily only a block back. Okay. We're good. If you lost track, I'm still exhausted.

~

Our usual time slot for our meeting is 6:00pm - 7:30pm. Today, it's at 5:00. You see, today is recruitment night and that starts at 7pm, but we'll get to that.

The meeting goes smoothly. The girls say the promise, we get out activity done and moms turn in anything they remembered. It goes without saying that not each girl paid enough attention, not every mom turned in money or read their emails, and a few girls didn't show. *sigh* Why do I keep doing this?

~

8pm and recruitment has just ended. I'm getting five new girl scouts, and two moms promised to register as troop volunteers! Seems as if my day is getting better before it ends. My eyes can barely stay open and I'm pretty sure I forgot to eat something before I left the house... so I'm still hungry and I'm still exhausted.... But you know what?

I'd do it all over again for the smiles I saw on their faces. It's totally worth it.