Sunday Funnies

This was written a couple of weeks ago...

Sunday mornings these past couple of months have been wonderful, because I get to sit through the entire church service.

The day begins when we arrive at church and go straight to Sunday School with our youth group teens.

Judah usually comes in there with us, as our smaller congregation has found it hard to keep find Little Tots workers for the Sunday School hour.

It's not often we make it all the way through the hour. Judah has the attention span of...well, a 3 1/2 year old boy, and tends to get really squirrelly after sugary treats like donuts and juice.

Those well-intentioned folks that brave working the Little Tot's class, for whatever reason, usually only last a few weeks.

I think this is because of the fact that Judah the three boys currently in that class are, together, a real handful. Yes, Judah and the twins are a force to be reckoned with.

Recently, my friend (the twins’ mother) had brought to church with them a toy motorcycle that Judah had left at their home the previous Sunday.

This toy is roughly the size of motorcycle Barbie would ride if she had a street racing bike. (Or does she? She's come a long way since the days of the fancy pink RV I used to play Barbies with at my friends house as a girl.)

This is one of those toys that has obnoxiously loud sound effects which I have elected never to buy for my own children, but am tortured with annoyed by on a regular basis anyway thanks to an uncle who thinks our boys need the noisiest toys on the market.

It's one of those toys which I loathe and feel like chucking off a twenty story building usually disable the sound effects for by removing the batteries, but somehow kept forgetting to do so. I think that is because it involves finding a Phillips screwdriver to open the battery case on the bottom, and me going to our garage to find a tool would be akin to asking Jeff to find me some scrapbooking eyelets in my craft room. A wild goose chase.

Which is the very reason it’s one of Judah’s favorite toys...because with him, the louder the better.

This is probably also why the twins mother wanted to return it to us so badly enjoyed playing with it so much during the week it was at their home.

Because of the fact there was no Little Tots class, the twin brothers were sitting with their mom and their visiting aunt in one of the adult Sunday School classes. Which happened to be held in the sanctuary. They were in the front pew.

The motorcycle was in with their mom’s stuff, and one of the brothers just couldn’t resist pushing the button on top of it.

And into the middle of the Sunday School lesson, the toy belts out, “I FEEL THE NEED FOR SPEED…LET’S RIIIIIDE!” complete with very loud music and the revving sounds of a motor. And it doesn't stop for a long, long, too-embarrassingly-long time.

Which was probably about the time she promptly rose and ushered the boy back to the Little Tots classroom where I was hanging out with Judah waiting until the teen girls arrived to take over for the Service.

Yes, a few months ago someone finally came up with the brilliant idea (read: they’d run out of other options) to ask a couple of the teen girls at church if they would like to work in the nursery during the service, and wonder of wonders they agreed to do so! For the first time in ages, I’ve been able to sit through worship without distractions.

So anyway, later that same morning, while listening intently to the sermon, I saw my friend (the twins mom) walk past and suddenly recalled the story of the toy motorcycle she'd told me just before the sermon began.

Which triggered the thought that my cell phone ringtone was not yet set on vibrate after a busy day out and about on Saturday. Which meant, of course, that I had to tend to that promptly and so reached over to rustle it out of my purse.

This is because my dad someone in my life has a real knack for calling at the most inopportune moments.

In doing so, I glanced at the time and discovered that we were just a couple of minutes from the end of the sermon.

I turned my attention back to the sermon, and became so engrossed that I didn’t realize we’d gone a few minutes over the usual ending time.

That is...until I heard a loud banging on the two-way mirror between the nursery and the sanctuary.

How distracting, I thought, then glanced back, and from my angle could barely make out the silhouetted ouline of one very familiar little head, cocked just so, and the faint, somewhat muffled sound of his gleeful shout behind the glass, “Hey, dere’s my mama and daddy!”

Clearly the boy was proud of himself for spotting us his parents and slapped the glass a few more times before he was bodily removed from the chair he’d somehow managed to push up to the two-way glass.

Yes, because stealing toys from the church nursery, running up and down the aisles during the middle of a sermon and then flipping the bank of light switches for the sanctuary off and on during another service were simply not enough, he had to add yet another incident to his record.
This kid is making a real name for himself in our church, let me tell you.

Randoms

Yesterday, I went to one of my favorite Thriftique stores and found Judah's "big boy" bed (with rails) for only $25!



This is a really big step for us, putting Judah in a big boy bed.

On the one hand, I feel almost ashamed that we still have him sleeping in a crib at 3 1/2, but on the other hand, when your son is prone to walking around the house in the dark of night and has done this, what else is a parent to do to be able to get a wink of sleep?

We've already long since installed a latch way up high on our front door and are now looking into buying some type of lock for our sliding-glass back door as well, because the old stick-in-the-bottom of the door thing doesn't keep him from getting out.

Despite our attempts at curtailing this behavior, Judah has also become quite adept at scaling and climbing over chain link fencing (thanks to big brother). Even very high chain link fencing.

And there is only one such fence between our yard and our neighbor's in-ground pool! Lord, have mercy!

We're obviously going to need to find some sort of method of alerting us when the boy climbs out of his bed.

Something loud enough to wake us from a dead sleep at night.

What really frightens me about this is that Judah was up wandering the house again last night because he was allowed to sleep in a big boy bed in big brother's room.

He already talks in his sleep, and now wanders the house at night (also apparently in his sleep)...do you see now why I worry excessively?

Have you seen those shows on TV where parents wake to find sleep-walking teenagers mechanically doing things like washing dishes, trying to get into the car in the garage and climbing around on roofs at night in their sleep yet with a blank look in their eyes?

I fear this. I truly do. But he's only going to fit in the crib for so much longer.

It's just that there are few options available that would be fire-safety approved.

Maybe keeping a baby gate in his doorway at night would help? If it was tricked out with bells?

I'm just not sure the other option would be loud enough. Bubble wrap on the floor could get pretty expensive after awhile.

On second thought, maybe I'll just put this bed in the studio/guest room for now instead.

:: :: :: ::

The kids had all been down for their naps for about a half hour or so, and I was in my studio happily drawing up landscaping plans for our newly cleared property when I heard a cry.

It sounded like the cry a little one makes in the night when they've gotten overheated and are all sticky and miserable, annoyed that their sleep was interrupted.

A sound that could almost be mistaken for a cough, but is really more of a cry of complaint. (And I know you're probably sitting there right now at your computer almost coughing, then smiling because you know exactly what type of cry I'm talking about).

"Figures it would be right after they finally all got to sleep, too..." I groused as
I silently tip-toed down the hallway to the other end of the house, hoping that whoever was awake would go back to sleep with a couple of soft pats on the back.

I peeked in on the girls and was relieved to find them both sound asleep. Which was good, because if one of the sisters woke up in the room where they were take their naps, I could pretty much kiss the next two hours of freetime goodbye.

Hoping that Judah would snuggle back into his bedding with the usual smoothing motion across his forehead, I crossed the hall, stepped into my bedroom and found that he, too, was sound asleep.

Well, whoever it was had fussed but managed to fall back to sleep on their own.

I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to work.

After drawing out some sketches for our side yard, I was trying to decide between honeysuckle or jasmine for the trellis there when I again heard crying, only this time it sounded like someone was calling out for me.

Somebody was probably thirsty. I filled a glass with water and headed stealthily back down the hallway to peek in on my boy.

He was snuggled into his blankets fast asleep.

Maybe the dogs barking earlier had wakened one of the girls. I quietly opened that door and found that they, too, were peacefully sleeping.

Coming back out to the living room, I was almost to my studio door when I again heard someone calling me.

Had Judah been pulling a fast one, trying to trick me? He'd never done such a thing before, but I certainly wouldn't put it past him.

Once again I crept down the hall and peeked into the rooms, only to find three soundly sleeping children.

I was just closing the door on the girls room when I heard it again, this time coming from the direction of the bathroom.

What in the world? I peeked in the bathroom, thinking maybe we had mourning doves nesting outside the window there as we did once in the other house.

And just then I heard the sound again coming loudly from outside, "Maaaaaaa-ma-a-a-ah."

And I had a good chuckle, realizing I'd been fooled by the neighbor's baby goat.



The kiddos quickly learned that if they made goat sounds, the kid next door would imitate them.

Little sister came running for me when the goat got too close to her and made it's loud "Maaaaaaah-ma-a-a-a" sound.

She wasn't sure what to make of an animal that could say "Mama".

:: :: :: ::

We broke out the sidewalk chalk after visiting with the goat for a bit.

Little sister was standing by the silly spider I drew.



Here, our Judah had just drawn a heart for his friend.



"Mama, wook...I maked a spiedow!"



Not too bad for a little tyke. I think he may become an arteest one day.

:: :: :: ::

In church on Sunday morning there was no Little Tot's class, and so Judah was in our Teen Sunday School class with us.

I'm pretty used to this, as for a couple of years there he was in my Wednesday evening Awana class since there was really no place else for him to go.

Occasionally he would interrupt, or the kids would laugh about something he was doing while standing out of my line of vision, but I got used to that, and was able to quickly get back on task.

Jeff, however, teaches all day in a school classroom and is unaccustomed to distractions during his class time, having very good classroom management skills. Most of his students are much older and with longer attention spans.

Judah's attention span is admittedly short, but for the most part he will sit quietly and listen.



But occasionally, all the sugar pulsing through his veins from the donuts and juice earlier will get the best of him, and he just can't contain his pent-up energy one moment longer.

This past Sunday, Jeff was in the middle of a fantastic lesson, when Judah climbed up on his seat and looked over at Lyndsay (one of the teen girls that rotates through the Nursery during Sunday Services) who was sitting to his right and whispers loudly, "Wookit, Wyndsay...I can Fwy!" And flapping his elbows wildly leaped off his seat in an arc and landed right in front of daddy's podium.

I don't know if I was just into Jeff's lesson that much or was completely oblivious to my child's distracting behavior, but it all happened so fast and just far enough out of my reach to be helpless to do anything without adding to the interruption.

That he'd been sitting there absolutely silent up to that point, and then suddenly decides to announce to Lyndsay that he could fly struck me as so funny that a giggle bubbled out.

Do you know how hard it is to restrain your laughter when something funny happens in church?

I managed to repress further audible giggles, but it instead took on that other form...silent laughter that shook my shoulders and the bench, until I was snorting and causing a bit of a scene myself.

I finally had to get up, grab Judah and leave.

Man, when is that kid going to grow up?