Sabbath Day Gong Show (The Sequel)

Sometimes my patience wears so thin it's translucent!

Today was one of those days.   

I was late for Church (again) and made John go ahead with the kids.  When I finally arrived, John made me feel all guilty for it.   Ok, not really, but he sure didn't make me feel ok about it, so same diff.   (His silent chastisement can be so biting:)   

 Sacrament Meeting itself was absolutely fantastic, except that Nate was being a little nerd and kept distracting both John and I.   (We later compared "notes," so to speak,  and we each totally heard things that the other didn't.    So it appears that between the two of us - we pretty much got everything out of the talks!  Yay us!:)   

After Sacrament meeting, I headed up to the Primary room, which was, looking back, perhaps a big mistake.  I'm kind of thinking now, that it would have just been better to go hide in a bathroom stall or something for two hours:)    Instead though, I spent the next two blocks trying to keep a couple of kids from bolting on us every chance they got.     One time, I made the mistake of asking one very cute but active boy if he wanted to sit nicely in sharing time or go find his Dad?  You know, cuz' I'm all about giving a kid a choice right?  

  ...He chose to go find his Dad. 

And I was all like....Shoot!!   

 I was stuck with the awkward realization that this kid had called my bluff, and now it was up to me to follow through, which I really really didn't want to have to do.  

 (Well played little boy.  Well played:)    

When I wasn't busy playing the role of the self appointed Hall Monitor,  I was struggling to keep my own son quiet!   To Sam's credit, he generally does try to be a very well behaved little boy and has really made great strides in that department over all. 

   But laugh at him once and it's a done deal.   He basically becomes his own one man act!   

Well, someone must of really fed his ego today, because he could not be silenced and was often blurting out the craziest things to kids across the room just to get a laugh!

   (I blame Netflix entirely for these random and silly outbursts as he was totally just quoting movies.)    

    

Things he's blurted out in primary include:

To one little girl (he possibly likes) he shouted:   "Hey!  I've got my Eye on You!"

To a little BOY who was trying to talk to him he said in a threatening tone:

   "If you don't behave then I'm going to tell everyone at school... that you take....ballet!"  

(Luckily, today wasn't quite as bad as in the past;) 

AFTER church, I remembered (barely in time) that I'd scheduled our family in for Tithing Settlement with our Bishop.    So, we rushed home for a quick snack, and then it was back to the church with kids in tow.   I made sure to take two solid minutes before actually leaving the van to severely lecture the kids about how they should behave when visiting with the Bishop.    (It was one of those, "Now I don't ask for much...." kind of conversations;)     Luckily, everything went fine, except for the moment when Sam shouted out "Dangit!" in response to a question, and Abby admitted that she usually forgets to pay her tithing.   (Other then that though, I'm sure we looked like really awesome parents right?)

   

  Here's the thing though.   Although today played out exactly as I described,  it also really was mingled with sweetness as well.   It'd be wrong of me to overlook that.  

 For starters, the Sacrament Meeting talks I mentioned, really were so wonderful.   I love this Church, right down to the very way it operates!

Second, I had the chance to sit in a class with five year olds and help/watch a very wonderful primary teacher teach the same two boys I'd spent an hour and a half walking the halls with as I pretended to be my own version of Cruella Deville.   She was remarkable with them, and spoke to them with nothing less then absolute love.   And I felt so very humbled.   

Third, I made John lecture Sam when we got home, and then Sam later came to me and told me he'd try harder not to be (and I quote) "like rude and stuff like that at church anymore;"    

Fourth, our Bishop is truly remarkable and he so graciously made us feel like our family was, not just normal, but still Heaven material to boot!  (Knock on wood:)
Fifth, I vowed to myself that I would never... ever ...be late for a meeting again!

Like, Never!!

Because I've learned, that if you show up late for a meeting - it's all down hill from there!:)