The Day of Rest, and Other Such Nonsense

     It all started with something that would normally be an exciting thing. I fit into a pair of pants that I haven't been able to wear in two years. Go me!

     I was nervous about wearing them to church so I asked my sweet husband how they looked and though they looked great he noticed a small tear in them that meant that the kids got to sit in the car while I hurriedly tried to change outfits. This made them more than a little antsy but it was over quickly, and I felt that disaster had been averted, (ha ha ha). I jumped in the car and we headed out.
      Once at church Daniel took off because he was leading singing and teaching the kids class upstairs so he had a ton of last minute prep work to do. All I had to do was feed the kids and keep everyone contained until church started. No sweat... (once again, ha ha ha)!

That is the grin I'm talking
about. Pure mischief.

     Within five minutes the food was abandoned and the mobile children were off. So I had a seat while my little prince smeared pancakes on my pants and shirt and... anything else he could reach. A few moments later the children came to find me to see if they could go play outside.
     Before church, in your dress clothes with no one free to make sure that you don't get run over? I think not. The answer is a firm no.
     The prince finishes his smearing and I set him down to try brush some of the mush off my person. Within moments I hear crying, I spin around and see that baby girl is laying on her little brother, and, obviously, he wasn't a fan. Her mischievous grin made it clear that she was aware of his disapproval.
     Sensing that justice was approaching she hopped up, turned around and took off out the front door which my oldest was holding open for some unknown reason. Perhaps he was an accomplice. I take off after her, pull her inside, and am in the middle of giving her a vicious talking to when I hear screaming behind me. Taking a deep breath I once again spin around to confront what ever disaster is brewing behind me.
     Baby girl makes her escape, the little prince heads off to try to eat a bug, and as I turn around I am sure that I am about to discover that my sweet boy has a hangnail since that is the level of harm that has resulted in such shrieking for the last week or two.

Bugs?! I don't eat... oh wait,
yeah, I'll eat bugs.

      Instead I see him with his arm pinched in the hinge of the front door. A totally shriek worthy experience. I rush over to release him and hold him for a moment before forcing him to let me look at his arm. A bloody looking bruise has already formed and so I hurry to get ice on it.
     I set him down in a pew, round up the escapee and the bug eater and settle us all down. My poor sweet boy is unusually calm as he ices his injury but the other two make up for his lack of enthusiasm and activity. Since Daniel is up front leading singing some wonderful friends sit at the other end of the pew to act as bouncers when, not if, one of the overly active children attempts to escape. Bless them!
     So over the course of the singing part of the service the younger two break my necklace, losing the charm somewhere down my shirt, and pour out a pencil box of crayons, all this punctuated with bouts of flailing and whining. But the pièce de résistance is when baby girl grabs the bag that had once held ice for sweet boys arm, and now holds ice cold water, and shoves it down my shirt.

The cuteness belies the craziness
they exude from every pore. 

     Now I'm the one flailing, and by some miracle, not screaming. Daniel has just sat back down with us as this happens so I lob the ice bag somewhere down the pew, toss the child to Daniel and try to pull myself together as communion comes down the aisle.
This is the moment where I glance at Daniel and I have two choices, hysterical tears or hysterical laughter. Daniels mouth twitches and my shoulders begin to shake... with laughter, and a few tears, but mostly laughter. 
     The poor guy passing the tray down our pew gives us a strange look, and I still had to fish my broken necklace out of my cleavage, but Daniel took the little prince up with him to do announcements, and I got half a moment to breathe. 
     In much the way that any landing you can walk, or limp, away from is a success, any Sunday morning that you can laugh at is a successful Sunday morning. Not a pleasant, uplifting, or enjoyable Sunday morning, but certainly a successful one. 
     Even my successful Sundays could hardly be qualified as a "Day of Rest" but I know that by being there, teaching them to sit, and praying that some essence of my love for God and the church drifts their way I am laying a foundation for the rest of their lives. Therefore I embrace the craziness and the laughter and vow to wear a turtle-neck next week.

The Playtime Catalyst

     "Come on! Let's go play!"

     These words, that I heard from my sons mouth to my daughter when breakfast was over, were sweet music to my ears. There is a three and a half year age gap between these two which is enough time for my sweet boy to remember life before baby girl and also to clearly remember her as a tiny baby. I have been wondering for a few months now when my sweet boy would look at his baby sister, who is now two years old and ready to play with her 'brubah', and realize 'Hey, she is a kid too!' In other words, some one he can actually play with. Most of their playtime interaction, until just recently was brother doing something, baby girl watching him, then annoying him as she tried to imitate it. There was a whole period of time where her MO was to stick legos in her mouth just to see him have a conniption over it.

     It seems that we found our catalyst in the new arrival that graced our lives last month. Our little prince arrived about a month ago and the change was immediate. Some of it may have been that my husband and I seem to divide our children up into categories according to mobility when we are carting them from place to place. For example: I take the one in the infant carrier, you take the two that can walk. But how much of a hand the adults had in this change isn't really important, what is important is that something about seeing a tiny baby seems to have sparked a comparison in my sons brain and he now sees our (not so)baby girl as a playmate instead of some thing to play around.

     He has always been good about helping her do things like wash her hands and get unbuckled but now they also color together, make ridiculous noises at one another at entirely inappropriate times, and the world revolves around making one another laugh. This has been wonderful for her development. Her vocabulary and sentence structure has taken huge leaps, her attention span is a little longer, and she tracks conversations much better. Much of this is probably from needing to learn how to tattle on what her big brother has put her through, he still forgets at times that she is smaller than him and can be a little too rough with her. She seems to have surmised that tears with give you kisses and sympathy but perhaps words will result in vengeance on her persecutor/helper.

     The sweet moments, in between tattling, tears and screams, when I hear the joyful bangs, happy screams and mystery thuds emanating from their room, are music to my ears. Next year my sweet boy will be in kindergarten so these precious days together will become fewer and further between. I know that she will miss her big brother terribly when she is stuck with me and the not nearly as interesting little prince.

     In my mind it all comes down to something I told my children when they were fussing at one another the other day:

     Your siblings will always be there, they will always love you just because you are you, and the bond between brothers and sisters is very special and never goes away. Being part of a family is hard, and being part of a bigger family takes even more cooperation and effort from everyone, you all have to pitch in to make things work. But the bigger the family the more people there are in this world to love you from the first moment you exist.