successful working mothers and the primary program

So working as the secretary in the Primary Presidency has been an interesting ride. I love doing what I'm doing for the most part. I've had a couple of irritating things happen, more pet peeves or what not with individual memeber of the presidency. They are all wonderful women, seriously, I love them all. However, the irritating moments have all arrisen from one simple fact/action on the part of certain people in the presidency. What is the irritating behavior you ask? I am not a personal assistant. I am the secretary. If I have my hands full of doing something and you need one copy of a random sheet of paper and you've just been sitting there enjoying singing or sharing time and not doing anything yourself it is NOT cool to ask me, who has been going around doing the multitude of stuff that I have to do EVERY week and ask me to drop everything that I am doing and make a copy for you. Take the paper in your hand walk it down the hall to the librarian, they really are nice people, and have them make you one copy. Case in point. I arrived an hour early to church yesterday to do a whole bunch of stuff I was asked to do by the presidency (miking and seating arrangements, stuff that needed to be done the day of, actually I would have done it the day before but I had to work and between everything couldn't do it.) anyway back to my story. I arrived 1 hour before to help set up the stage. I was getting the programs together (with last minute stuff I might add that someone had asked me to do the day before), it was 20 minutes until Sacrament Meeting started, I had been scrambling for 40 minutes because NO ONE ELSE WAS THERE YET when an individual comes up to me while I am stuffing programs frantically because people are starting to arrive and asks me to make a copy for them because some teachers didnt' bring their copies of the program. I looked at said individual and said "The Master copy is in the cabinet." She said "I know but I need these done." I couldn't even say anythign I was so annoyed, flabergasted and what not. I just looked at her. She arrived 20 minutes before hand and wanted me to drop everything I was doing, which was everything that needed to be done, meaning there was nothing left for her to do and go make her a copy. My glare must have gotten my point across because she said "oh I guess I'll go make the copy myself." Um yeah, good idea. You see these individuals are extremely successful in their own respective work places. They are working moms with personal assistants, nannies and maids. It's not that they are purposefully trying to be offensive they are just not thinking that the church is not work. I am not your slave nor personal assistant. It is my job to make your job of caring for the kids easier. I take roll, make sure all the sisters get everything from the RS so they don't feel isolated in Primary, I make copies for the chorister and laminate everything, I also manage the bulletin board every month, make and hand out our primary newsletter, make all the assignments for talks and scriptures, and act as a liason for the parents. Yes the parents usually come to me when they have a question. I don't mind making copies for you too. Just not at the last minute, just not when I have to drop everything to make it for you, when you are not doing anything yourself. I don't mind helping you cut out the things you need for your sharing time just not when I'm balancing 150 copies in my arms and I have to find you the scissors, they are in the cabinet labeled scissors, just open the box, they are right there. Yes everything is labeled for your convienience. Yes all the master copies are in the closet. Yes I have folders put together for new teachers in teh closet. Yes everythign is labeled for you. Yes I know her parents, yes I will find them for you. Yes I'll get you the budget information, yes I have an updated roll. yes. ok enough ranting. I'm done. whew! had to get that out! On a different note entirely the primary program was AWESOME!!!! I mean completely totatlly awesome! The kids did a great job. We had the traditional kids the did their parts perfectly and we had the fun ones who livened it up. We had one child who wanted to expound on his part but couldn't think of anythign to say so he said his part 3x "Adam was a prophet". Hee hee. We had one snaffoo. The first song was to be accompanied by one of the little girls who was going to play the harp. She had to go to the bathroom at that point in time. Well she wasn't there when it was her time to play so they went on without her. She arrived 5 mintues later. Well they decided to have her song sung again at the end of the program. Well technically we were done with all the songs when one of the sunbeams who has special needs yelled out "and now for one more song!" Lol I lost it as did most of the congregation. I had tears in my eyes I was laughing so hard. But he was right. We had that little girl come down right then to play her song. It was awesome! And my little Megan knew all the songs. She was up there singing away, smiling at her mommy and daddy then watching Sister Betsy like she was supposed to. It was adorable. I loved it completely. It totally made up for everything that happened before. We also had people coming from all regions saying it was the best one yet. Why? It was miked. Oh yeah baby. That was me... actually and Brian and sound expert who brought his mikes and helped us set up everything and run tests so that you could hear all the little kids in the very back of the cultural hall. Yep yeah for us! After the program we had a silly singing time. That was fun because Betsy had a variety of manners to sing songs. The kids got to pick a song and then had to sing the song the way Betsy had them pick on tongue depressors. Then they had all the teachers get up and sing too. Haha! Some of the older girls that I talk to a lot came out and hunted me down to sing with the adults. It was fun, mostly because I'm not a reserved person. All the teachers were up there singing like "I really really don't want to be doing this". Not me buddy. Hee hee. We had to sing as if we were singing underwater. So everyone was kind of mumbling singing. I decided to act up. Yes I got to reinact my child hood. I did this in primary when I was a kid so hey to have free licence to do it again I was game. I started "swimming" with my hands and puffing out my lips and swimming back and forth. I got some pretty funny looks from the teachers and I had the kids in stitches. I then started wiggling my finger between my lips like you do to babies and singing that way. Hey it sounded like I was underwater. I got the men, alas not the women, to do it with me. The kids loved it and started singing with us doing the whole finger thing too. It was awesome. Yes I was a hit. They got me to sing opera too, which I have a distinct memory of being in primary in the Valiant 8 class and getting my class to sing opera. We got into big trouble but we kept doing it. Ahhh the full circle. I loved it. I then got to hook up the tvs to watch our movie. I'm pretty good at hooking up electronics so it was a breeze just linking the two tvs together to show the same thing. I got comments like "can you come to my house and hook up my tvs, I can't get them to work." I was pretty proud of myself. The kids got to sit on blankets and watch some "living Scriptures" movie. They got treats and stuff. I noticed one of the little girls wasn't eating. Then it hit me. She had sciliac disease, meaning she couldn't eat anything with gluten. We had forgotten to get her something! Then I looked up and saw her mom. She was crying. "Oh crud" I thought. I went to talk to the mom and she told me that it's ok but her daughter was goign to go home and cry about it and she hates that. I guess this past month with the holidays and stuff the little girl had several parties that she didn't get to participate in because of her disease, felt left out and went home and cried. I went into scramble mode. I ran into Betsy in the hall. She saw my face and went "what's wrong?" Oh man. We both took off running to the nursery to see if they had non gluten food there. We lucked out they had sliced apples for their snack that day. They said to take as many as we wanted. We did and the little girl's face was incredible when we gave her the apples. She was so thankful to be able to participate. I was so ashamed that we hadn't thought of her special needs when we talked about the snack. We won't forget from now on. Thank goodness for the nursery is all I can say. Overall though it was a good day. ONe to live in my memory (ok I just typed mammory for some reason and had to rewrite it. weird) for a long time. My baby said her part perfectly and sand ALL THE SONGS. Yeah for my baby!