Snippets of Sundays

I have always hated 1:00 church. By far my least favorite of the three options. Until this year! I have been loving the lazy mornings. I've been loving that it's practically bed time when we get home, and I've been loving that we don't currently have any nap schedules that severely interfere with the afternoon worshipping. It's been heavenly.

Jeff's been enjoying his Sunday morning Lego time. One Sunday I had all three boys in the bath tub. As I was getting Lincoln out, I heard a clatter of Legos across the hall. I looked in to find Jeff sitting all alone in the boys' room meticulously crafting with Legos.

Eli has recently developed a new friendship. With a stuffed animal. He's never been big on stuffed animals, but one Sunday he grew attached to "Nighty" and insisted we bring him to church with us. Eli dressed him up in tie and shoes and lectured Nighty on the importance of being reverent during church the whole way there. 

Eli was pretty good with Nighty at church...initially. Halfway through the meeting, "Nighty" started jumping around and making distracting noises. I leaned over to Eli and said, "Eli. You need to be reverent or I'm going to take Nighty away."

Eli innocently looked over at me and replied, "It's not me! It's Nighty! I think I need to take him out in the hall."

Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. Nice try, little mister.

The other little mister has also pulled a few antics at church recently. He's in this phase where he loves to BOLT -- suddenly, unexpectedly and with great speed. He's funny because he gains your trust. You are sitting on the edge of the bench as Carson tries to scooch by you and he makes you think, "Yeah. He's old enough to sit on the end of the bench. He won't run away. He knows better than that. He's never run out of the bench and through the aisles of the chapel, straight to the bench where the boys prepare the sacrament to use as a trampoline before. Surely that's not what he's trying to do."

You offer your son a moment of trust. A moment of freedom to experience life on the end of the bench. A moment you would soon regret.

Because he'll plop his little bum on the bench. Look at you. Smile a closed mouth smile with eyes squinted, head cocked, just the thing he knows will reassure you he'll be responsible with the new seating arrangement. He'll wait for you to turn your head. And then he'll BOLT! ZAP! GONE!

Scurrying up to climb onto the bench -- in front of everyone -- where they prepare the sacrament. And you guessed it -- jump on that bench like it's a trampoline for 30 solid seconds. 

The thing about Carson is, if you chase him, he runs. If you ignore him, he returns. He loves a reaction so if you don't react, he will quickly come back to seek the reaction he needs. People turned around to look at me like, "Ummm. What are you going to do about that?" While I sat still, arms folded and head bowed. Partly because I was trying to make a point to Carson that I was not going to react to his antics and partly because I was trying to avoid eye contact with everyone turned around and staring at me. And partly because I was saying a little prayer he would quickly give up his charade and return back to his rightful seat -- barricaded in the middle of the bench.

He returned. Thinking he was completely hilarious. Beaming with pride. Then he shimmied back into our bench. He plopped back in his place, and he acted like everything he just done was completely normal. 

The boys are usually really good at church. Their teachers give them rave reviews. They always volunteer for prayers, scriptures and talks in sharing time. They sit quietly and really seem to take things away from their classes, but every once in a while they surprise us with a bout of mischief on the pews.