Family photo 2013

Family photo 2013

Saturday, June 21, 2008

It was a normal Saturday evening.

We had pizza and carrots for supper.
We bathed each child.
We got everyone dressed, including appropriate footwear.
We stopped by the restroom.
We changed 2 diapers.
We packed snacks for our trip home.
We got in the car.
We drove the 1/2 hour to church.
We sang songs on the way.
We arrived.
We walked through the parking lot.
We went into the building.

All heck broke loose.

2 out of the 4 who needed to be dropped off in their classrooms had fits. Loud fits. Embarrassing fits. It seemed no amount of coaxing, bribing, or scolding would stop the protesting tears and squeals.(And it wasn't who you might think, no 2 year old was involved.)

Then, this one fell down the stairs as we were leaving one of the classes (sans one of the crying Deutsch kids who wouldn't go in) and got a nice knot near his eye, which of course, led to some (more) major screaming. We were quite the spectacle.
"Yes, yes." I wanted to say. "Here we are. Take a good look." We are: THOSE PEOPLE. Those people who are thoroughly entertaining to watch and say "man oh man, I'm glad that's not me." I put on my brave "oh this isn't bothering me a bit. I'm a super cool and collected mom while my children tantrum" face and kept on walking....right back out to our car.
We pulled the 2 children who did go into their classes well out.
We drove the 1/2 hour home.
Tensions were a *bit* high.

We came home and "practiced."
The couch was the car. We "drove" to church.
The bedrooms are the classrooms. We "dropped them off."
Remember kids? This is how we go to church, just like every other Saturday night.

Some day maybe we'll look back on this and laugh.
I did say maybe : )

The funny thing is, no matter how much we want to, we really can not control them. We can prepare, teach, instruct, lecture....but ultimately, they will make their own choices about how to behave.

Now, instead of our usual big breakfast Sunday morning, we're off to church, again.
Fine. No real harm done. Tomorrow is a new day and we'll pick up and try again. Thank God our 'troubles' today only included wasted effort and nothing truly significant.

4 comments:

Sandy said...

oh... that's too bad. You even had a new recipe to try for your Sunday family breakfast! :) It'll have to wait 'til next week. Hopefully that practice at home worked and the morning will go smoothly...

Unknown said...

Oddly enough we had one of those days with 2 out of our 2 children. Must have been somethings in the air. I love the "it's not bothering me face" I often use it. If people only know what was going through my mind though! Good luck tomorrow. I like how you came home and practiced - I'm going to try that next time!

Alicia said...

You can laugh later, but I am laughing now!

Shanan Strange said...

I'm trying not to laugh and be all supportive.. but it's really pretty funny! Anyone with children has had many days just like that and we can all understand. It's a good thing that they are so cute, huh?

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