Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Paying attention in Church

Sometimes I get so frazzled sitting through Sacrament Meeting with all five of our kids. It's not really sitting; it's getting up and down with a screaming or stinky baby, leaning sideways to break up an escalating argument between kids old enough to know better, or bending myself in half forwards to recapture dropped crackers, papers, shoes, pacifiers, ad nauseam. (Really, I sometimes start to feel a little dizzy. It's more exercise than I get all the rest of the week.)

And, inevitably, I start to wonder if any of us are getting anything out of it. But I realized something must be getting through to my three-year-old daughter the other day. She's been going through a stage lately where she is constantly noisy. She bangs thing, taps on things, but mostly just makes mouth noises all day long. Some of it is in English, but mostly it's just noise. But during a piano solo of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" she sang along (to her own tune and before I could shush her), these words, "I got it open myself. Oh! My fruit snacks!"

And then I had to bend forward to help her pick them up.

5 comments:

kate said...

that's soooooo funny! and sad.

Charity said...

I am sitting here laughing. You describe sacrament meeting perfectly! Nathan recently was called as Bishop to our newly created ward, so I get to do this by myself. Unfortunately, I also have to teach a class right afterward and I feel so frazzled and out of sorts that it takes me half the class to calm down. It makes me feel bad for everyone else in the class. At least most of them have been there and can laugh with me.

edith said...

And here I was wishing that we had sacrament meeting first. We're all worn out by the third hour and the baby has had enough. Wow, Nathan is Bishop. Do I congratulate you or offer condolences? Maybe just encouragement: Hang in there!

victoria said...

Ha Ha!! It should have been sung to "Oh My Father." Oh, my fruit snacks! . . . But that is even more irreverent, isn't it. Yes, sacrament meeting is hard. I just celebrate if we actually make it through, which we do only about half the time.

Charity said...

Luckily we have sacrament first. We are at a 50/50 ratio of days that I have been able to stay in the chapel for the whole meeting. I guess that means we are half way there! I've discovered that if I don't feed Cole in the morning he will sit through most of the meeting just eating his snacks. It is when he gets full that it gets crazy! All in all I'm doing better than I thought. At least I don't have the extra emotional stress that Nathan does, but I know he'll be a great bishop. Thanks for the congrats and condolences :)