Observations From The Back Pew

When our youngest was a baby, we had grand intentions of keeping him in the church service routinely so that he would learn to be quiet and attentive and reverent from a young age and remain so throughout his childhood. "Train up a child" and all that.

It seemed to have worked quite well for big brother.

But since our second son's birth, things...haven't quite worked out that way.

Little brother has a completely different personality.

Where big brother was compliant and eager to please mom and dad, rarely ever getting into trouble in church, little brother simply can't sit still. If he's not talking far too loudly, he's exploring the territory, checking for gum beneath the pews, drawing on the backs of offering envelopes, loudly getting his offering money ready for the ushers to collect, playing with the short pencil or pulling out the little gold plastic stopper thing that holds the empty communion cups on the back of the pew.

I find myself constantly on alert, trying to anticipate his next move and hopefully avert disaster.

I shudder to think what this will translate to when he gets to Kindergarten.

Anyway, on Christmas Eve, our family was sitting in our usual spot on the aisle within steps of the back door of the sanctuary. The quicker we can escort our distruptive dear son out of the sanctuary, the better for everyone.

That particular night he was hopped up on sugar from a jumbo candy cane and who knows what other goodies had been in a little stocking a friend had given him just before the service but which I hadn't discovered until he was nearly through with it, foil wrappers and cellophane hanging out of the pockets of his Christmas slacks.

The poor, sugar-deprived boy works pretty quick when goodies are involved, because there is always the possibility that mom will intercept it and opt to put it in her purse and 'save it for later'.

At any given time, I have at least a couple of suckers and some hard candies rattling around in the bottom of my purse from these search and destroy type occasions. Yes, Judah dislikes that I do this, but this mom wants to control the sugar intake around here as much as possible because I loathe taking care of sick children and expensive dental visits.

So our Music Director got up and said, "In a few minutes, we're going to have someone turn out the lights for our candlelight carol sing...but first, our Pastor will come and share a few announcements."

Singing Carols is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas time. But as I tuned into what our Pastor was saying, I was kind of surprised to see the stage lights above him flicker off. Then on. Then the left bank of lights flipped off and on. Then the right.

Judah was no longer sitting with us in the pew. A quick glance to the light switches in the back of the sanctuary confirmed my suspicions. Yes, little brother had taken it upon himself to that 'someone' to turn out the lights. Only without having been asked to do so.

Talk about mortifying.

And yet oddly hilarity inducing.

I started to giggle silently. I tried to hold them back, but as I pondered over what might have possessed Judah to do such a thing, I ended up in a shoulder shaking silent laugh that I'm pretty sure was every bit as distracting as our boys antics.

By this time, Jeff had assessed the situation, grabbed him, returned the lights to their previous settings and was already back, little brother firmly wedged between us in the pews.

Then Jeff saw me trying not to laugh.

And then his shoulders began to shake, and we both went through that whole self-talk thing, Don't make eye contact...don't do it.

Failing miserably, we both ended up acting like a couple of misbehaving kids in church.

How could we possibly work up a good 'stern' face to discipline our son when we ourselves were acting up in church?

Anyway, all that to say how happy I was when little brother was invited to go with the elementary aged kids to Children's Church even though he's not yet a Kindergartner. Though I had my suspicions at first that she'd been asked by the powers that be to please, please take him out, we were pleased to hear week after week since that he's done very well in class.

Win-Win, I say. We get to hear a sermon--in it's entirety--without distraction and he gets to hear a Bible lesson in a place where it doesn't matter if he's got the wiggles. WooHOO!

So last evening, Jeff got a call asking if he could fill in for the Children's Church leader as she was moving to a new house this weekend.

This morning, we found ourselves waaaay out of our comfort zone, teaching little kids and singing every single Sunday School song that has motions to it during the course of the morning.

Just a quick aside: If you have small children and haven't worked with them in a classroom setting before, you might want to give it a whirl just once, because otherwise you have NO IDEA the kinds of information they unwittingly reveal to their teachers about your family.

Stories that for whatever reason are indelibly marked upon their brains are blurted out during the course of the class to the wide-eyed shock of their teachers.

After listening to a couple of sisters tell just such a story, which painted a very vivid picture about their household, I sat back feeling pretty confident that thus far, my boys hadn't ever been so... indiscreet. Started patting myself on the back for it, actually. In fact, I believe I may have actually got a little sanctimonious and proud.

Maybe you can see where this is going? That whole pride goeth before a fall thing?

Well, it all started when Jeff told about the 10 Lepers that were healed by Jesus, but only one returned to thank Him for it.

Jeff asked if any of the children knew what leprosy was. There was a hum of speculation and one very bright little girl raised her hand and said, "A skin disease that is very contagious."

"Very good!" Jeff replied. "In fact, it was so contagious that people who had it were kicked out of their homes and even their villages or cities, and had to live far away from other people because they were considered 'unclean'."

He went on to talk about how it was a "dread disease. It was incurable. Nobody wanted to catch it. It began with spots of discolored skin, which would then become somewhat gangrenous and gross and which would result in large, horrible, smelly sores which would eventually deaden nerve endings and could cause fingers to fall off."

Unexpectedly, Judah pipes up and says for everyone to hear, "Oh...like what my mom has!"

Say WHAT???

Being that I haven't had so much as a band-aid on my fingers in the last year I was mystified as to what would give him that idea.

As we laughingly discussed it on the way home, I thought perhaps Judah was referring to the 'Science Project incident' in which my thumbs were lacerated by a broken Christmas bulb.

Then Jeff reminded me that maybe it was the time I'd contracted ringworm from a friend's cat.

The time I may have overreacted just a tad because I knew how contagious and hard to get rid of that stuff was, and didn't want anyone in my family to get it.

Perhaps Judah had just picked up on the contagious part.

Incidentally, nothing works better for ringworm than lavender essential oil rubbed into the area and allowed to dry, then liquid bandages (in the nail polish type bottle) painted over the area and worn for 3-5 days until it smothers the ringworm to death.

Believe me...in the two weeks before I finally hit on that remedy, I tried everything from tea-tree oil on down to wasabi powdered horseradish...the latter of which about burned off the top three layers off my skin.

Anyway, after discussing this with little brother, we're pretty sure that's what he was referring to. Although there is a HUGE difference between ringworm and leprosy.

Oy, I cringe thinking about the kinds of word pictures our son has routinely painted about our family in the few short weeks he's been in that class.

It just doesn't get much worse than insinuating that your mom has leprosy!