Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Turkey Day Trot
We decided to support the YMCA by running in a race bright and early Thanksgiving morning. Dave and I did a 6 mile race and the kids had a little dash across a field in their respective age groups. Dave trained really hard by running 1 1/4 miles the day before the race to test out an app on his phone that tracks your run. He felt good after the race . . .that is until he had trouble walking for several days after. I ran ]about 4 miles on Monday to train while pushing the girls in the double jogger that acts sort of like a parachute when I run into the wind. It would have been better without a screaming baby. The race was better without any children and having the masses of people to pump me up.
Some of the kids enjoyed it more than others. . .it was freezing!
Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy
I have found that attending church with young children often leaves me wondering things like : Why do I do this? Where was the spiritual nourishment? Where were the quiet, reverent m0ments of introspection? My calling in our ward as the sunbeam teacher for Dallas's class hasn't helped answer these questions either. Take last Sunday for example.
Brooklyn is producing enough snot to cover her face and clearly won't be going to nursery, but we decide to load everyone up in the car and go sacrament meeting as a family and then Dave will take the girls home afterwards since I need to stay for primary. Dave buckles the girls in the car as I run around the house franticly grabbing snacks, diapers, wipes, blankies, things for my lesson, etc. I get in the van, Dave gets in his car and we head off.
Upon arriving at church and unbuckling the girls, I notice Dallas doesn't have his shoes on and ask him where his shoes are. "I couldn't find them." Great. He's kind of passed that age where it is okay to not wear shoes . .I'm pretty sure that's only cute before a kid knows how to walk. However, we're already late to a ward where you can come early and still end up sitting in the hard chairs on the gym floor because there are so many people so I decided he's staying as is. I can't find Dave and eventually start herding the kids in alone. We all meet up happily on the hard chairs on top of the gym floor. No surprize there. The kids are wiggling and whining as they like to do.
The important part of the entire meeting arrives, the Sacrament. The few minutes where everyone is putting their full effort into reverence and the room is pretty quiet as a general rule. Well, Brooklyn takes the box of crayons out and loudly dumps them all over the floor. Good thing she got everyone's attention because the next thing we kn0w, she picks one up and strategically places it between her legs and starts saying "Oh my penis. my penis, my penis " over and over and over in her very high-pitched voice until the teenage girl and her mother sitting next to us are tearing up from laughing so hard, the people in front of us are laughing and others within ear shot are probably condemning us for "teaching" our daughter such things. I am holding Lexi and tell Dave to take her out quickly. Of course we're laughing too because of the choice moment and because I have a tendency to laugh a lot when I am really embarassed. Things went downhill from there and by the end of the meeting, Dave had taken the girls and the shoeless wonder home.
At least I had the sunbeams who spent sharing time, jumping out of their chairs, licking and spitting on each other. They spent their bathroom time on the counter "washing" their hands and in front of the full length mirror teaming up to try and remove the toilet plunger they had stuck there and they spent their hall time fighting over who got to be at the front of the train line I have them walk in. (No, their behavoir isn't always this bad and yes it used to be a whole lot worse before I was put in as their teacher. We do have good days where with a lot of guidance their behavior could be deemed acceptable for church. This just didn't happen to be one of those days).
Revernce? Hardly. Nourishment? only physical as I ate snacks with them in class. Introspection? Only as to how many more kids I want to birth. (haha) Why? You tell me.
Brooklyn is producing enough snot to cover her face and clearly won't be going to nursery, but we decide to load everyone up in the car and go sacrament meeting as a family and then Dave will take the girls home afterwards since I need to stay for primary. Dave buckles the girls in the car as I run around the house franticly grabbing snacks, diapers, wipes, blankies, things for my lesson, etc. I get in the van, Dave gets in his car and we head off.
Upon arriving at church and unbuckling the girls, I notice Dallas doesn't have his shoes on and ask him where his shoes are. "I couldn't find them." Great. He's kind of passed that age where it is okay to not wear shoes . .I'm pretty sure that's only cute before a kid knows how to walk. However, we're already late to a ward where you can come early and still end up sitting in the hard chairs on the gym floor because there are so many people so I decided he's staying as is. I can't find Dave and eventually start herding the kids in alone. We all meet up happily on the hard chairs on top of the gym floor. No surprize there. The kids are wiggling and whining as they like to do.
The important part of the entire meeting arrives, the Sacrament. The few minutes where everyone is putting their full effort into reverence and the room is pretty quiet as a general rule. Well, Brooklyn takes the box of crayons out and loudly dumps them all over the floor. Good thing she got everyone's attention because the next thing we kn0w, she picks one up and strategically places it between her legs and starts saying "Oh my penis. my penis, my penis " over and over and over in her very high-pitched voice until the teenage girl and her mother sitting next to us are tearing up from laughing so hard, the people in front of us are laughing and others within ear shot are probably condemning us for "teaching" our daughter such things. I am holding Lexi and tell Dave to take her out quickly. Of course we're laughing too because of the choice moment and because I have a tendency to laugh a lot when I am really embarassed. Things went downhill from there and by the end of the meeting, Dave had taken the girls and the shoeless wonder home.
At least I had the sunbeams who spent sharing time, jumping out of their chairs, licking and spitting on each other. They spent their bathroom time on the counter "washing" their hands and in front of the full length mirror teaming up to try and remove the toilet plunger they had stuck there and they spent their hall time fighting over who got to be at the front of the train line I have them walk in. (No, their behavoir isn't always this bad and yes it used to be a whole lot worse before I was put in as their teacher. We do have good days where with a lot of guidance their behavior could be deemed acceptable for church. This just didn't happen to be one of those days).
Revernce? Hardly. Nourishment? only physical as I ate snacks with them in class. Introspection? Only as to how many more kids I want to birth. (haha) Why? You tell me.
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